Black Sea Fleet: a 23-year adventure

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, fraught with a serious destabilisation of the country, concerns Russia’s interests too, some of the most important being the fate of the Black Sea Fleet, its status in Crimea and its historic main base in Sevastopol. The struggle for the future of the Black Sea Fleet started on 5 April 1992, when Ukraine’s President Leonid Kravchuk signed a Decree “On Urgent Measures for Building Ukraine’s Armed Forces”, under which the former Soviet Black Sea Fleet was to be transferred to Kiev’s jurisdiction and its forces based on Ukrainian territory were to serve as the basis for immediate establishment of a Ukrainian Navy. Kiev had no right to make such a decision.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, fraught with a serious destabilisation of the country, concerns Russia’s interests too, some of the most important being the fate of the Black Sea Fleet, its status in Crimea and its historic main base in Sevastopol.

What is more, at the time, the Fleet was still part of the United Armed Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States and of the CIS Navy under the command of Fleet Admiral Vladimir Chernavin.

In Moscow’s response to that step, Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a counter decree on 7 April 1992, placing the Black Sea Fleet under Russia’s jurisdiction. The Kremlin proposed resolving the resulting crisis through negotiations, pending which both decrees were suspended.

Lengthy diplomatic bargaining ensued, exacerbated by the situation “on the ground”. Kiev encouraged Black Sea sailors to take an oath to Ukraine, in an attempt to “Ukrainise” the Fleet and put Moscow before a fait accompli.

Ukraine subsequently adopted a harsher course: according to the memoirs of former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and former Ambassador to Kiev Yuri Dubinin, “on 8 April 1994, in the port of Odessa, the Ukrainian military tried to seize the Cheleken hydrographic vessel engaged in scheduled maintenance of navigation equipment. On the night of 10-11 April, a detachment of up to 120 Ukrainian servicemen took by force the 318^th division of Black Sea Fleet reserve ships, together with its shore base, communications hub, property and weapons. The shore base personnel were taken to Chebanka, a settlement located ten kilometres from Odessa. This created a critical situation”.

As a result of subsequent negotiations, a verbal agreement was reached on stationing the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

RIA Novosti, 2010

A Russian-Ukrainian agreement on a phased settlement of the Black Sea Fleet problem was signed on 15 April 1994, establishing a division ratio whereby Russia was to receive 80-85% of the Fleet’s ships and vessels. At the same time, Russian diplomats came to an understanding of the need to link the Fleet agreement with a political agreement between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side was insisting on signing a political agreement separately from the Black Sea Fleet agreement, leaving the entire matter up in the air.

The negotiations were restarted from scratch. As a result, on 9 June 1995, an agreement was signed in Sochi under which Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and Ukraine’s Navy were to be based separately and Sevastopol was given the status of the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Property issues were to be settled on the basis of an earlier agreement to split the assets evenly. Ships and vessels were divided between Russia and Ukraine in a ratio of 81.7%/18.3%.

On 28 May 1997, final intergovernmental agreements were signed in Kiev on the status of and terms for stationing Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Ukraine’s territory, the Black Sea Fleet division parameters and mutual settlements stemming from the Fleet’s division and stationing of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Ukrainian territory.

The division of the Fleet, coupled with dramatic defence spending cuts compared to the Soviet era, has entailed a significant deterioration in the balance of forces in the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea theatres. In 1991, the Soviet Navy’s Black Sea Fleet was made up of around 100,000 servicemen and 60,000 civilian workers and employees, 835 ships and vessels of virtually all existing classes, including: 28 submarines, twoanti-submarine cruisers, sixmissile cruisers andrung I large anti-submarine ships, 20 rung II large anti-submarine ships, destroyersand rung II patrol ships, around 40 rung III patrol ships, 30 small missile ships and cutters, around 70 minesweepers, 50 landing ships and cutters, and more than 400 Navy planes and helicopters. The Fleet had two divisions of (anti-submarine and landing) ships, one submarine division, two aviation divisions (fighters and Navy missile planes), one coast guard division and dozens of individual brigades, regiments, battalions,squadrons, companies and batteries.

Up to a hundred combat ships and vessels were sailing into the world’s oceans through the Black Sea straights annually. The Fleet’s bases were scattered across a large territory, from Ismail to Batumi (Ismail, Odessa, Nikolaev, Ochakov, Kiev, Chernomorskoe, Donuzlav, Sevastopol, Feodosiya, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Poti, etc.) and its servicemen were stationed in Ukraine, Crimea, Moldova, Russia, Georgia and the North Caucasus autonomous republics.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, by the beginning of 1992, the Black Sea Fleet’s property, including combat ships, was estimated to be worth more than 80 billion US dollars.

The Fleet has since shrunk dramatically – by almost 90%. The Black Sea Fleet currently consists of around 40 combat ships and cutters, as well as several dozen support vessels. Its shore-based aviation and coast guard forces have also been cut by several orders of magnitude. While, in the past, it used to dominate the Black Sea and rivalled NATO’s united forces in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea is now smaller than Turkey’s Navy in the Black Sea theatre (although it still exceeds the navies of all the other Black Sea countries combined and maintains a strike potential in excess of the Turkish Navy’s, thanks to its more powerful missile ships).

At the same time, the situation on Russia’s southern borders has become much more troublesome. In 2008, the Black Sea Fleet had to carry out combat missions during the Five-Day War with Georgia and, in 2012-13, Black Sea Fleet ships, together with forces from Russia’s other fleets, supplied weapons, military equipment, spare parts and components to Syria’s armed forces battling radical Islamists in their own country. The number and length of sea sorties have increased exponentially and months-long service and combat trips to destinations all over the world’s oceans have resumed. In fact, the Black Sea Fleet serves as the basis for deployment of a permanent Mediterranean formation of Russia’s Navy incorporating ships from all Russia’s other fleets on a regular basis. The Black Sea Fleet is once again, therefore, becoming a tool not only fordefending the country’s borders but also forprotecting its interests far from home.

At the same time, the Fleet is yet to receive new combat units and its combat readiness is maintained by repairs and limited upgradesto existing ships. According to current plans, over the next three to four years, the Black Sea Fleet should receive six Project 636 submarines and an equal number of 11356R/M frigates currently under construction. This addition will become the first stage of modernization of the Black Sea Fleet’s ships. In general, the existing plans envisage maintaining the current size of the Black Sea Fleet, while gradually replacing obsolete ships and support vessels over the next ten to fifteen years.

Yet the Fleet’s uncertain status in Crimea has been its main problem all along: the original stationing agreement set 2017 as the deadline for the Fleet’s withdrawal, with repeated statements during Viktor Yuschenko’s presidency that the agreement would not be extended. After Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010, however, an agreement was signed in Kharkov on continued stationing of the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea until 2042, with a possible rollover for another five years.

Even so, construction of a new base for the Fleet has been underway in Novorossiysk in the meantime, as there is no guarantee that Viktor Yanukovych’s successor would reiterate the agreements signed by him. The unrest in Ukraine in the winter of 2013-14 and the coming to power of the “Maidan government” have only bolstered those concerns. At the same time, looking at the developments in Crimea proper, the Black Sea Fleet’s positions there can be expected to become stronger. That would be an extremely fortunate solution because, for a number of reasons, from weather to geography, Novorossiysk cannot serve as the Navy’s main base.

As the main base, Sevastopol is today the best port on the Black Sea coast, if not in the entire Black and Mediterranean Sea basin, not only because of the advantages it offers as such but also thanks to its location virtually “above” the Black Sea’s geographical centre. This convenient location enables a Sevastopol-based fleet to carry out missions of practically any kind.

Without a doubt, not only Moscow is aware of this, so the disputes over Crimea and the Fleet’s base are going to continue.