Ukraine to initiate Russia’s expulsion from BLACKSEAFOR

Ukraine will initiate Russia’s expulsion from the Black Sea Naval Co-Operation Task Group at a session of the BLACKSEAFOR’s High Level Experts Group, due in Bulgaria in mid-May, a military diplomatic source in Moscow told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday.

 

“Under the decision of the present authorities in Kiev, this initiative will be voiced at a next session of the group, which will be held in May in Bulgaria, supposedly in Varna,” the source said.

“The Ukrainian side will be motivating its initiative with Russia’s ‘systematic violations’ of provisions of the 2001 agreement on the setting up of BLACKSEAFOR,” the source added. He said that upon instructions from the Kiev authorities, the Ukrainian representatives in the task group would seek to achieve the goal through a set of successive moves.

“At a next session of the High Level Exerts Group, Ukrainian representatives intend to accuse Russia of systematic violations of the 2001 agreement, and demand the signing of a new document on BLACKSEAFOR without Russia’s participation. If this variant fails for some reason, Ukraine will offer isolating Russia within BLACKSEAFOR, as the US and its allies have been trying of late to do within the framework of the United Nations,” the source said.

 

“And a third possible step may envisage suspension or denunciation of the 2001 agreement,” he continued. He said that substantiating their position, Ukrainian representatives could accuse Russia of politics aimed at achieving domination in BLACKSEAFOR, of violating the territorial integrity of another BLACKSEAFOR country, Georgia, in the August of 2008, as well as of Crimea’s annexation in March.

 

"The quintessence of the Ukrainian demarche may become the statement that "hostile and aggressive policy of Russia towards other participants made this BLACKSEAFOR naval structure inefficient and unsustainable, and therefore it was necessary to enter into a new agreement on BLACKSEAFOR, but without the participation of Russia, " the source added.