Crimean Power Struggle Russia and Ukraine Jockey in the Black Sea
It is early morning deep inside the missile cruiser Moskva, where the heat and the stench of diesel fuel are the most oppressive, as the lower ranks emerge from their five-bed cabins. Below decks, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet feels like a prison tract with cell walls made of gray-painted steel.
The sailors march up the stairs for morning roll call. At 7:43 a.m. sharp, officers and seamen stand at attention on the upper deck, in rows three deep, between cigar-shaped missile shafts and launching pads for anti-aircraft missiles, while the division commander inspects the formation. "We salute the Comrade Rear Admiral," the troops shout. The commanding officer replies: "At ease."
Here on Quay 14 in Sevastopol's Holland Harbor, the Russian navy is ready for battle once again, at least judging by what Rear Admiral Andrei Baranov, the deputy commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet, has to say. The recent operation in Georgian waters was a brief act of "self-defense," says Baranov, adding that additional combat missions are not on the agenda at this point. Nevertheless, he is quick to add, the Black Sea has undoubtedly become a "hot spot", and "we are, of course, obligated to protect our citizens in case of emergency."
The rear admiral chooses precisely the same words Moscow used to justify its August combat operations in Georgia. According to the Russians, citizens in the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, who had been issued Russian passports beforehand, required "protection" against Georgian aggression. But in the port city of Sevastopol, on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, the situation is more complex. Close to three-quarters of the city's residents and about half of the Crimean population are ethnic Russians, but most are Ukrainian citizens.
Facilitating Naturalization
Rumors have been swirling in the Crimea that Russian passports are being issued on a grand scale. The chairwoman of the "Russian Community" in Sevastopol thinks there could be as many as 50,000 Russian citizens in the city, a figure that officials at the Russian consulate deny. Last Monday, the upper house of the Russian parliament complicated matters even further when it adopted legislation facilitating the naturalization of ethnic Russian citizens of other countries, of which there are up to eight million in Ukraine alone.
Sevastopol, a naval base for 14,000 members of the Russian Black Sea fleet, is already a Moscow enclave of sorts, a sharp thorn in the side of Ukraine, an independent country since 1991. The city became Russian under Czarina Catherine II, and it remained that way until Soviet Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev, in the context of an exchange of territory, awarded the entire Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954 as a "gift." When the Black Sea fleet was split apart in 1997, Sevastopol became home to both a Russian and a Ukrainian naval unit. The Russian lease expires in May 2017.
Tension between the two countries has been high, though speculation that the Russian-Ukraine treaty on friendship -- which guarantees the current borders between the two countries and peaceful coexistence -- proved unfounded. The treaty was extended for another 10 years this week.
In the run up to the decision, however, many had thought new conditions would be introduced into the pact or that the treaty would be cancelled altogether. "If we lose Sevastopol, we lose the entire Caucasus," said Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who wants the treaty jettisoned and the port city brought back into the Russian fold. As a mouthpiece of militancy and a sponsor of the Russian diaspora in the Crimea, Luzhkov has served as the Kremlin's watchdog for years. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, on the other hand, weakened by the renewed collapse of his governing coalition, has made it clear that he prefers to see the Russian navy leave his country sooner rather than later.
From on board the Moskva, it is easy to recognize why. A tiny spark in the harbor of Sevastopol could result in a much larger political conflagration. Ash-gray steel colossuses flying the Russian and Ukrainian flags are docked next to each other, the Alrosa, a Russian submarine, bobs nearby and, in the middle of it all, there is the visiting USNS Pathfinder, an American naval reconnaissance ship.
Expensive Evaporated Milk
For the Russians in Sevastopol, the US Navy's claim that the ship is here to search for World War II wrecks on the Black Sea floor is difficult to believe -- as are other US Navy claims. A Russian captain on board the Moskva says derisively: "The Americans are supposedly bringing evaporated milk to Georgia with their warships. That would be the world's most expensive evaporated milk."
NATO ships at anchor in the harbor of Sevastopol, the "City of Heroes," trigger old reflexes among those Russians who have always seen themselves as surrounded by their enemies. In pro-Moscow newspapers on the peninsula, Cossack groups and the backrooms of political incendiaries, there has recently been talk of an upcoming "third defense" of the city. After heroic losses in the 19th-century Crimean War and later against Nazi Germany, the Crimea's ethnic Russians now see themselves about to embark on a new form of defensive action: against the political leadership in Ukraine, which is seeking to join the NATO alliance.
When it comes to the Crimea and Sevastopol, the Russians believe that it is their mission to save more than just a fleet base, but also a miniature version of Russia. The seaside city is graced with cedar and acacia trees, a bronze statue of Lenin in front of the St. Vladimir Cathedral, elegant officers' clubs, nightly skating exhibitions featuring long-legged beauties on the piers and Russian pop music under a starry sky.
"The Crimea was everything that Russia was not: the south and freedom, a foreign place on the territory of the Russian empire," writes Karl Schlögel, an expert on Russia and Eastern Europe. The Crimea, a refuge for the aristocracy since the days of czars and dubbed the "red Riviera" during the Soviet era, occupies a fixed place in the collective Russian memory, he says. "Dream landscapes are more stable than countries, and the maps in people's heads continue to exist long after new borders have been drawn," says Schlögel.
'No Peaceful Solution'
The borders in favor of Ukraine were drawn here decades ago. But the voices that insist on Russia having an inalienable right to the Crimea are only beginning to grow today. Is it true, then, as Ukrainian government politicians claim, that a repeat of the bloody "Georgian scenario" could take place on Crimean soil?
"There can be no peaceful solution. But the price of a forceful disengagement of the Crimea from Ukraine would be high: War against a sister nation," says a thin Russian officer who has agreed to meet in a discreet outdoor restaurant in Sevastopol. The man, who wishes to be called Viktor Kalugin, for his own protection, is familiar with the combat readiness of his country's military. He was on the ship that sank the Georgi Toreli, a Georgian coast guard vessel, off the coast of Abkhazia on the evening of Aug. 9.
The Russian Flag for the Crimea?
"War is war, and an officer must execute the commands he is given," says Kalugin -- even when his men are marching against a former sister nation, as in the case of Georgia. "We didn't even know where we were going when we received our orders to deploy" says Kalugin. "We tried to keep up with the events by watching the news on television. But there was poor reception on the water. Even our commander knew nothing."
Would Kalugin be as obedient a soldier if he were fighting Russia's Ukrainian neighbors? He prefers not to think about it. He has served in the navy since the latter days of the Soviet era, and he has gone to wherever he was sent. He still drinks vodka with former colleagues who are now serving with the Ukrainian Black Sea fleet, but they never discuss politics. Kalugin, a high-ranking naval officer, has a fervent wish, which he keeps to himself on those evenings spent with the Ukrainians: That the Russian flag will soon fly "over, not just Sevastopol, but the entire Crimea."
In Sevastopol, just as in many once-closed cities of the vast former Soviet Union, some things have remained unchanged. Dubbed the "last bastion" while under Soviet control, and so strictly shielded that it was off-limits to foreigners until 1996, Sevastopol is a place where paranoia and xenophobic propaganda flourish like seedlings in a greenhouse. The toxic seeds planted by both sides since the 2004 Ukrainian revolution and Kiev's change of course have finally borne fruit.
Nightly Vigils
The port city's newspapers, with names like Last Bastion and Legendary Sevastopol, are increasingly filled with alarming reports of a near-collision between the missile cruiser Moskva and a Ukrainian naval vessel in Sevastopol Bay, Russian activists protesting at one of the city's breakwaters, clashes with the police, the destruction of a plaque commemorating the first warship to sail under the Ukrainian flag, protests by Ukrainians against a new memorial to Czarina Catherine II on Lenin Street and subsequent nightly vigils by Russian volunteers at the site.
After 1991, centuries of common history were shattered and the wreckage reassembled. The image that resulted on the one side is dominated by primarily Ukrainian-speaking freedom fighters, military commanders and poets. But there is mounting anger on the other side, among the once-dominant Russians: over issues like the removal of Russian stations from the cable TV lineup, university lectures in Ukrainian and schoolbooks in which, more recently, Russian literature is subsumed into "world literature."
The center of Russian resistance is in a building on Nakhimov Square, where the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy once lived. The building, known as the "Moscow House," is the hub of a network designed to help local Russians feel at home in Sevastopol, with projects such as a school featuring a Russian lesson plan, a branch of Moscow's Lomonosov University and the construction of 2,000 comfortable apartments for officers.
The money for the projects comes from the budget of Moscow Mayor Luzhkov, who has been barred from entering Ukraine since May because of his inflammatory rhetoric. But for the Russians in Sevastopol, Luzhkov is a hero. Not only is he responsible for providing them with schools, lecture halls and apartments, but he also makes it unmistakably clear that the Ukrainians should not expect a Russian withdrawal, be it in "2017 or 3017," as Luzhkov says derisively.
A 'Single Nation'
Similar views are held in the Sevastopol city parliament, which is dominated by the supporters of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, communists and radicals from the "Russian bloc." The national chairman of the "bloc," Alexander Svistunov, happens to be visiting Sevastopol, and made himself available to answer questions.
As he sits there, evoking a peaceful future for the Crimea while at the same time explaining why things will probably turn out differently, Svistunov is the prototypical troublemaker feigning innocence. Unfortunately -- yes, unfortunately -- he says, the mood among the people in Sevastopol is similar to that of the Abkhazians and South Ossetians before war erupted in Georgia. The "tragic historical mistake" of awarding all of the Crimea to Ukraine threatens to come back to haunt the city, he says. Naturally, he adds, this is no reason for him and his people to unleash a war, but Sevastopol can certainly expect a "hot autumn."
Is he saying that there is no peaceful solution? Oh, of course there is, says Svistunov, explaining that Russia's Ukrainian and Belarusian brothers should simply come to terms with Moscow so that they can be brought back into the Russian fold. "Why risk yet another historic tragedy when the real issue is that we all belong to one single nation?"
Svistunov, along with almost 90 percent of the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, recently voted for a resolution calling upon the pro-Western Ukrainian government to recognize the separatist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- a proposal with no prospect of succeeding. But it was yet another pinprick designed to generate headlines. Another was the threat, disguised as a call for help, by the deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament, who said: "We note with concern that we now face times no less dramatic than during the Crimean War, a century-and-a-half ago." Once again Europe, the deputy speaker added, has "gone to war with Russia."
Language of Power
"And," Miroslav Mamchak asks, smiling, "what was the outcome of that war? Russia lost, and Sevastopol fell. All enemies that have ever come here have captured the city -- that is the bitter truth about this city of heroes."
A retired sea captain in the Black Sea fleet, Mamchak was one of the first to swear an oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian flag, in 1992. Today he is one of the few who fearlessly expresses something that ought to be legally indisputable: that the port city is an inalienable part of Ukrainian territory and that the presence of the Russian fleet is contractually limited until 2017.
Mamchak, who is also the chairman of the "Ukrainian Society" and general manager of "Briz," a military radio station, has come under heavy fire from Russians in the city. He is caricatured on posters as an SS officer and fascist with a Hitler moustache, and, as he says, the words "Get out of Sevastopol" were scrawled onto the walls of his house. But Mamchak insists that he will not be forced to his knees by "criminals" and "mentally ill" warmongers.
The sorely afflicted city of heroes, says Mamchak, urgently needs a civilian concept for the future. "We currently have 100 meters (328 feet) of quay for warships, but only 90 meters (295 feet) for cruise ships. That has to change," he says. Mamchak's vision of a Sevastopol of the future includes tourists instead of torpedoes in the city's harbors, and "Ukrainian culture" instead of post-Soviet hero worship.
And how is this to be achieved against Moscow's wishes? Quite simply, says Mamchak: "Ukraine desperately needs to become part of NATO. Or re-obtain nuclear weapons. There is only one thing Russians understand: the language of power."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
