Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Russia

Russia Warns Ukraine On Changing Terms For Naval Base

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov (file photo) (epa)

27 December 2005 -- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov today warned Ukraine's government that changing the terms of Moscow's lease of a naval base in Ukraine could ignite a border dispute.

TEXT SIZE - +

December 27, 2005

Ivanov said the agreement covering Russia's use of the naval base it uses in Crimea is part of a broader Russian-Ukrainian border treaty.

He said that changes to the lease would "seem fatal."

Ukraine is currently in a dispute over gas prices with Russia's state-run gas firm. Ukrainian officials have suggested charging higher prices for use of the naval base to offset the increase Moscow wants to charge Kyiv for the price of gas.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov today said that Ukraine has the "unquestionable" legal right to take 15 percent of Russian gas shipments passing through its territory as a transit fee.

(AP/Reuters/AFP)

RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, And Moldova Report

SUBSCRIBE For weekly news and analysis on Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova by e-mail, subscribe to "RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, And Moldova Report."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More