Ukraine is about to sign 6 fleet-related supplement agreements with Russia

10.12.2010 As for Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev should sign 5-6 supplement agreements regulating presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet (BSF) in Crimea.

"It is necessary to sign additional 5-6 agreements on BSF functioning in Crimea", said Ukrainian ambassador to Russia Vladimir Yelchenko in the interview to Interfax - Ukraine.

According to him, those agreements deal with legal matters, renewal of warships, and control over Crimean lighthouses.

"Basically, we will have to settle all that issues next year to eliminate all speculations around BSF", Yelchenko said.

Ukrainian foreign ministry reported in Oct 2010 that Kiev would let new BSF warships in Crimea only in case of "complex solutions" for problematic matters.

"We want to resolve a range of problems at once – BSF property inventory, movements of servicemen, fleet modernization, rules of port calls and exits, conducting exercises etc", said Oleg Voloshin, director of Information Policy Dept, Ukrainian MFA.

The official also emphasized that renewal of Black Sea Fleet must not include the situation when arrival of new Russian warships to Crimea "would provoke any concerns of our partners, since their opinion is very important to us".