Kiev expects new concessions for loyalty to BSF

14.10.2010 Ukraine is not about to hinder replacement of Russia's Black Sea Fleet (BSF) warships; however, Kiev expects some rebates from Moscow in return, reports Rosbalt citing Oleg Voloshin, the head of Information Policy Dept, Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"We accept the logic intentions of Russians to modernize their Black Sea Fleet with a view to transform the set of historical ships into a really operable naval formation… We are neither about to hinder the fleet renovation process nor want to preserve the fleet in the current conditions, but we have our own legislation and know exactly where we can compromise and where it is Russia's turn to offer concessions… The negotiations on replacement of BSF ships is in progress and go even more successfully than talks on delimitation of the Kerch Strait", said the politician.

Voloshin pointed out that the ships replacement would be carried out on the "same-class, same-type principle. And we are going to stand on this decisively". "Aside from the fleet's operability recovery, this will not cause any concern of our partners whose position is very important to us", explained he.

According to him, this issue was mentioned in the framework agreement of 2007, although today "there's a necessity to specify the whole range of provisions". "Ukraine proceeds from the point that modernization of Black Sea Fleet should be a component of a wider process. We should eliminate all...blind-spots… All we want is to settle the whole range of issues at once – property inventory, relocation of BSF servicemen, modernization, rules of port calls, exercise activities", added the representative of Ukrainian MFA.

It should be noted that during the first Russo-Ukrainian forum president Viktor Yanukovich offered to use Ukrainian bases for maintenance of Russian warships. As it was previously reported, Moscow and Kiev are about to sign new agreements on BSF deployment conditions. According to different experts, those issues will be probably related with gas deliveries which are to be discussed at the meeting with Russian premier Vladimir Putin coming on Oct 26 in Kiev.