Ukraine stands by demand for departure of Russia's Black Sea Fleet

Kiev has warned Moscow that its Black Sea Fleet cannot stay in the Crimea after 2017. Vasily Kirilitch, the head press officer within the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said on 24 June that Russian naval units stationed on the Crimean peninsula must leave and not return by 29 May 2017: the day the Russian-Ukrainian agreement on the Black Sea Fleet division, signed in 1997, expires. Kiev said there would be no further negotiations on this issue because it would run counter to the country's constitution

[first posted to http://jdw.janes.com - 03 July 2008]