ORAC
19th Apr 2005, 09:36
BBC Monitoring: Leaving Sevastopol
Ukraine has made it known that it wants to come to an agreement with Moscow on the withdrawal of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol.
"If we are friends," says the Russian daily Tribuna, "let us acknowledge that if the Black Sea Fleet has to leave... it will cease to exist as a... powerful regional component of our security." "If we are friends," the paper repeats, "let us agree that Russia can only lose from the realisation of Ukraine's plans to join Nato." "Given the prospect of Georgia also joining in due course," it adds, "the Black Sea is becoming the (Atlantic) alliance's inner lake."
Still in Moscow, Trud says that "so far... our minister of defence has been repeating the incantation that 'our fleet will not leave Sevastopol' ", the paper says. "But why then is a new base for the Black Sea Fleet beginning to be built near Novorossiysk?"
Ukraine has made it known that it wants to come to an agreement with Moscow on the withdrawal of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol.
"If we are friends," says the Russian daily Tribuna, "let us acknowledge that if the Black Sea Fleet has to leave... it will cease to exist as a... powerful regional component of our security." "If we are friends," the paper repeats, "let us agree that Russia can only lose from the realisation of Ukraine's plans to join Nato." "Given the prospect of Georgia also joining in due course," it adds, "the Black Sea is becoming the (Atlantic) alliance's inner lake."
Still in Moscow, Trud says that "so far... our minister of defence has been repeating the incantation that 'our fleet will not leave Sevastopol' ", the paper says. "But why then is a new base for the Black Sea Fleet beginning to be built near Novorossiysk?"