The naval fleets of two seafaring nations share the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol: the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Though political forces within the two nations create tensions that make the neighboring states uneasy allies at times, the sailors stationed there have learned to coexist and support one another.
With Russia's Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine's navy sharing a common port, any number of situations might cause tensions to flare. In the past, Russian lawmakers have tried to assert their nation's authority over the city, a move rebuffed by the United Nations. Likewise, Ukraine's steady movement toward membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a persistent irritant to Russia.
"We consider the process [of closer relations between Ukraine and NATO] to be unproductive, although we cooperate with NATO," said Volodymyr Muzychenko, an advisor with the Russian Embassy in Ukraine.
Parliament Deputy Boris Tarasiuk, a former foreign affairs minister and a leader of the right-centrist People's Rukh party (also known as Kostenko's Rukh) says that he believes that NATO's influence will eventually move eastward from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea.
Tarasiuk noted that six countries with a combined gross national product of $1.3 trillion border the Black Sea. These nations have a combined 2.3 million soldiers and 500 warships at their disposal.
But Captain First Class Alexander Shcherbakov, an officer assigned to Ukraine's naval headquarters, sees Ukraine and NATO developing their partnership in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Black Sea. He said that military and tactical marine exercises between NATO and Ukraine have become commonplace on Ukraine's territory and abroad.
"Unlike Russia," Shcherbakov said, "NATO productively works with Ukraine to improve our laws."
He said that Russia has consistently taken a dim view of NATO's work with Ukraine, most recently expressing unease with a memorandum of mutual understanding signed by Ukraine and NATO. Russia's Duma "took the grave view that the document gave NATO Ukraine's actual consent to expand to the East using Ukrainian land," he said.
The right-center Vecherny Vesti newspaper affiliated with opposition lawmaker Yulia Tymoshenko echoed that view on April 28, explaining that the Kremlin was irritated by the "scandalous" memorandum, which gives NATO forces the immediate right to enter Ukraine and transit through its territory.
Despite Russia's nervousness about Ukraine's interest in NATO - or perhaps because of it - Ukrainian naval commanders say they are ready to partner with the Russian navy as well. Talks with Russian naval officials have been underway for eight years, according to the navy's deputy commander-in-chief, Orest Marushchak. Despite the prolonged discussions, no substantive decisions have been made.
And there is a lot to decide. The aging remnants of the former Soviet Union's once-powerful Black Sea Fleet may have been distributed, but myriad other issues related to compensation, property and land have yet to be determined.
Ukrainian naval officers complain that Russia unilaterally declared Ukraine responsible for navigation in the Western and central parts of the Black Sea, but has failed to transfer navigation aids to Ukraine.
At the same time, Russians are irked that Ukraine has not moved to finalize Russia's leases on facilities it occupies in Crimea.
Shlyah Peremohy (The Path of Victory), a newspaper aligned with the Ukrainian nationalist movement, wrote on April 28 that Russian military forces in Crimea owe the country huge amounts in rent. The newspaper valued Crimean land at $40 per square meter per year, and that the Russian Navy occupies 18,000 hectares. The bill for Russia's use over the past eight years, the newspaper opined, would be more than $60 billion, or about six times Ukraine's annual budget. Collecting that debt would solve the country's financial woes, though few if any observers realistically believe that the nation will recover anything close.
This newspaper said that Russia employed "legislative sabotage" and "aggressively ignored" Ukraine's navy.
On occasion, Russia has at least shown paternalism toward Ukraine. The Russian embassy's Muzychenko irritated Ukrainians when he said that the main task of Russia's Black Sea Fleet was to "guarantee the security of the southern borders of Russia and Ukraine."
Ukrainian observers indignantly asked when Kyiv had delegated the right to protect its maritime border to Moscow?
The history of Russia's Black Sea Fleet and Naval Forces of Ukraine is full of such haughtiness.
The former commander of Ukraine's air force, Lieutenant-General Volodymyr Antonets, said that when Russia and Ukraine divided the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet in 1997, Ukraine received only 17 percent of the ships, not the agreed 20 percent. The ships that were transferred to Ukraine had an average age at that time in excess of 25 years.
Captain First Class Nikolay Savchenko, who heads the Ukrainian Naval Forces' press service, said that Russia's rough treatment of Ukrainian mariners is nothing new. When Soviet sailors were given the option of transferring to either the Russian or Ukrainian navy, those who opted to join Ukraine were mustered out with the notation: "fired for discrediting an officer's dignity." He said that as Russian military forces abandoned bases and installations in Ukraine, they treated the property as though they were leaving it in enemy hands. What couldn't be removed was destroyed.
Decades of Soviet and later Russian military presence has left a lasting imprint on Crimea, many of the residents of which speak primarily Russian. Sevastopol once carried the motto, "City of Russian Glory," and Ukrainians have complained of being treated as strangers on the Crimean peninsula.
But historians argue that Russia's dominance of the area is only a relatively recent phenomenon. The Zaporizhiya Cossacks' fleets were based in Crimea for 500 years. From there, they stormed Turkish fortresses unapproachable from the land during the 18th century Russian-Turkish wars.
People who are skeptical of Ukraine's Crimean connection should visit the Sevastopol cemetery, Savchenko says. Soldiers from Poltava, Chernihiv and other Ukrainian regiments that defended Sevastopol during the Crimean War are buried there.
Even so, Savchenko says that he believes that tough Ukrainian-Russian confrontation over Crimea is in the past. Sevastopol Mayor Valentin Borisov took
a risky step forward recently when he referred to his town as "a Ukrainian city." A similar comment elsewhere in the country wouldn't raise eyebrows, but in Crimea, the statement had impact.
The future of Ukraine's navy rests, says Rear Admiral Ihor Knyaz, with NATO.
Knyaz, the navy's commander-in-chief, said that the nation is building new ships in an effort to upgrade the aging fleet inherited from the Soviet Union. He said that the navy plans to add between ten and 12 new ships by 2015. And, he added, Ukrainian taxpayers have financed several new ships during the past decade.
Even so, Ukraine's fleet lags behind Russia's Black Sea vessels.
Knyaz said that NATO's importance to Ukraine grew as Russia became more reluctant to engage in joint exercises and other forms of military cooperation.
Tarasyuk is even more emphatic that NATO involvement is key to the security of the Black Sea region, which he sees as part of the overall Euro-Atlantic area.
Some analysts have concluded that by failing to work with Ukraine, Russia's military may have unnecessarily isolated itself in the Black Sea.
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