KUCHMA: NO DEAL ON BLACK SEA FLEET LIKELY BEFORE RUSSIAN ELECTIONS.

Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma said in Sevastopol thathe did not expect any agreement on the future of the Black Seafleet to be signed before the Russian elections in December, Ukrinformreported August 22. While Kyiv wants an agreement, Kuchma indicatedthat it will not agree to shifting Ukraine’s naval command fromSevastopol as Russia wants. Meanwhile, Russia’s coastal defensedivision has begun turning its property over to Ukrainian andlocal authorities in Simferopol. And Ukrainian government andnaval officials expanded on Kuchma’s remarks to say that the partitionof the fleet will require Moscow to pay "billions of US dollars"to Ukraine for leasing bases. Meanwhile, pro-Moscow residentsof Sevastopol staged a demonstration August 22 to denounce whatthey called "the bourgeois nationalist majority" inthe Ukrainian parliament.

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