<tit>
IT WILL BE HOT IN THE CRIMEA<stl>... where Ukraine wants US troops and which Russia wants to acquire again
<aut>Ruslan Gorevoy
<src>Versiya, No 21 (46), June 5 - 11, 2006, p. 5
<sum>An update on the latest political scandal in Ukraine that may result in President Victor Yuschenko's impeachment. Residents of Feodosia were dismayed to discover a transport of the US Navy being unloaded in their port: containers with military hardware some of them stamped "Toxic".</sum>
<cov>We couldn't believe it
"We received a call from the staff of Duma Deputy Sergei Baburin and were told that a NATO transport ship was being unloaded in Feodosia. We couldn't believe it," Ukrainian politician Natalia Vitrenko said. "First, the Feodosian port is purely civilian. Second, it is tourist season in the Crimea. What military exercises do they plan, what are they thinking about when the whole coast is swarming with tourists? Third, foreign troops and military hardware are not supposed to be on the territory of Ukraine without the Rada's permission."
Supposed to or not, but there they are. The Rada is meeting on June 7, and it is not a foregone conclusion at all that most lawmakers will vote to permit the US Army in the Crimea. After all, even the "Orange" specialists are viciously anti-NATO, not to mention Communists, Socialists, and the Party of Regions - the largest faction of the Rada. It seems that the decision-makers resolved to inform lawmakers post factum. One hundred and fifty soldiers of the US Army are already in Feodosia, in a resort that belongs to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. They roam the city in groups 20 men strong, their COs wise enough to forbid ventures out alone or in smaller groups. Moscow locals exist on what they earn in the tourist season, and the dilemma for them is quite simple: US GIs in, Russian tourists out. The tourist season - the period when they make just enough to see them through the rest of the year - is ruined. What for? For the sake of the "Orange" ideals, the pro-Russian inhabitants of the Crimea have never shared?
Once it dawned on them that the Orange Regime was going to ruin them, the locals blocked the Feodosian port. The crowds of protesters swelled. Deputies of the Feodosian city council, representatives of youth organizations, and Crimean politicians like Sergei Tsekov, Nestor Shufrich, and Leonid Grach joined the Crimeans. The American ship sailed away, leaving the weapons on the pier. Members of the municipal city council that had proclaimed Feodosia a "NATO-free zone" only recently made it past the cordons and examined some containers left by the Americans. What they discovered inside certainly differed from what was declared. "Port officials were told that the containers were full of spare parts for army trucks, field kitchens, and all that," Vitrenko said. "This "all that" turned out to include light weapons and poison-gas... How could all of that be left in an unguarded civilian facility? Who gave the order? Who is responsible?"
Protesters asked all these questions (and many others) when Gennadi Moskal, Presidential Envoy to the Crimea, turned up to try and sort out the mess. Moskal replied that should it turn out that all of that as illegitimate, then it would remain in the hands of the Crimea. In other words, the Crimean’s should be happy to lay their hands on all of that.
The Crimean’s are not happy. Even the military is skeptical about the prospect of making use of the stuff. The Ukrainian Army cannot use NATO equipment or military hardware. As a matter of fact, who is it that claims that Ukraine is going to become a NATO country when opinion polls show that two thirds of all respondents are categorically against the idea and when Yushchenko himself claims that only the people have the right to decide if they want to be in the Alliance or not.
There is the hypothesis meanwhile that everything is much more serious than one might think. This hypothesis was ventured by an officer of the Ukrainian Security Service attached to the Crimean Headquarters. There are rumors in the Security Service that the light weapons were unloaded in Feodosia and left unguarded deliberately, that "the Kosovo scenario is being orchestrated on the peninsula. Some of the weapons are supposed to make it to extremist organizations. That is why defense of the port was never boosted, and that is why containers with light weapons were placed as close to the exit as possible. We will wake up one fine day and see clouds of smoke all over the Crimea..."
All of that lends a whole new dimension to the LDPR initiatives concerning a revision of the Russian-Ukrainian "big treaty" of 1997. The treaty expires in 2007, to be automatically prolonged until 2017, unless one of the signatories objects. Well, at least one signatory certainly does. LDPR lawmakers are convinced that the process of transfer of the Crimea to Ukraine was executed with lip service at best paid for with formalities, and that it must be revised in the light of the latest developments. "Granted that Crimean jurisdiction is open to question, there may be no questions at all concerning that of Sevastopol. A city of nationwide status once, it has never been turned over to Ukraine," Duma Deputy Natalia Narochnitskaya said. Most lawmakers seconded the LDPR initiative and instructed the government to revise the Russian-Ukrainian treaty.
Two other transport ships of the US Navy are about to sail into Feodosia in the meantime. They carry armored vehicles and helicopters... The tourist season promises to be a scorcher.
RVR
