Ukrainian communists: no one can denounce the Black Sea Fleet agreements

Nobody will denounce the agreement prolonging presence of Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, reports ForUm citing Ukrainian MP Evgeny Tsarkov (communist party). 

"If this is possible, we'd denounce the Belavezha Accords signed by trilateral cahoot. If things are so easy, the president could denounce a number of political laws enacted by Kravchuk, Kuchma, and Yushchenko", explained the politician. 

According to Tsarkov, if Russian party would not obey its treaty commitments, it could be a ground to dissolve the agreement. "If next Ukrainian leaders want to denounce the Kharkov Treaty, it would be possible only on these grounds", he said. 

"There is international law though. This kind of developments is possible only with radical changes in Ukrainian political system. If communists come to power, capitalistic system would shift to socialistic one", said Tsarkov. 

The MP is sure that "...Azarov also wants to denounce many things. In particular, International Monetary Fund's credit is a slipknot around his neck. Take note, those are documents signed once upon a time by Yushchenko, Timoshenko, Yatseniuk, and Stelmakh. So, plainly speaking, today's municipal housing and pension reforms, as well as other unpopular steps of the government are consequences of those contractual relations we have with International Monetary Fund". 

"If our president and prime minister were forceful leaders like Lukashenko in Belarus, they'd denounce these agreements, pay off credits and never be bound to this. This is just what our communist party waits for. And if our current leadership understands that now we have to repay $81 bln debts out of raised $83 bln per year, it is necessary to break off debt relations", considers Mr. Tsarkov. 

Recall that on Apr 21, 2010 in Kharkov Dmitry Medvedev and Viktor Yanukovich signed an agreement prolonging presence of Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea for 25 years. 

Ukrainian parliament ratified this agreement on Apr 27, 2010. 

Yulia Timoshenko has repeatedly opposed the Kharkov treaties. However, it should be recalled that being the prime minister she was about to prolong deployment of Black Sea Fleet in Crimea in exchange for natural gas discounts. At least, her opponents and experts told about these intentions many times.

Russian-Ukrainian naval exercise Fairway of Peace 2011 was discussed in Sevastopol

Planning conference on the Russian-Ukrainian joint exercise Fairway of Peace 2011 was held on Feb 17 at Black Sea Fleet (BSF) training center in accordance with the plan of international cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries. 

Working groups of Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) and Ukrainian Navy participated in the conference. They were headed respectively by Director of BSF Training Dept Capt 1 rank Alexander Chesnokov and acting Ukrainian Navy Deputy Commander for combat training Capt 1 rank Denis Berezovsky. 

In accordance with agreements reached during the previous meeting (Jan 29), the parties provisionally agreed upon terms of the exercise – second half of May 2011. During the discussion participants approved concept and process of the exercise; fully covered training goals, structure of headquarters, and quantity of ships; analyzed reconnaissance of planned site for landing operation near BSF coastal range in Kazachya Bay; coordinated actions of landing ships, marine units, aircrews of aircrafts and helicopters in the course of the exercise. 

The parties agreed to conduct the final conference in mid-Apr 2011. By this time they will have to finish the plan and complete the package of documents regarding this bilateral exercise. Scenario of the current exercise is international peacekeeping operation in crisis region. 

Joint Russian-Ukrainian naval exercise Fairway of Peace was firstly conducted in 1997, then under mutual agreement it was held biannually (1999, 2001, and 2003). After a long break, the exercise was resumed in 2010 as an interactive headquarters exercise. Then Russian and Ukrainian defense ministers decided to conduct the Fairway of Peace exercise every year with participation of active warships of Russia's Black Sea Fleet and Ukrainian Navy.