Ukraine Imposes Restrictions on Russian Navy

[tekisui]

Ukraine imposed new restrictions on Russian naval vessels based at Sevastopol on the Black Sea as former Soviet bloc states lined up to show support for Georgia in its fight with Russia.

President Victor Yushchenko raised the prospect of revoking an agreement that allows Russia to use the Crimean port until 2017 if Russian commanders defy the new restrictions. The presidential decree requires vessels blockading Georgia to ask Kiev's permission to return to the treaty port.

Reasserting control over its near neighbours is at the heart of Russia's foreign policy. It has ruthlessly cut winter energy supplies to secure compliance from Eastern Europe and used Russian-speaking minorities from the Baltics to Central Asia as leverage against states courting the West.

Mr Yushchenko joined the leaders of Poland and the Baltic states on a solidarity mission by a self-described group of "captive nations" of the USSR, to Tbilisi on Tuesday.

Even before yesterday's decree, Mr Yushchenko had faced domestic criticism for adopting positions that inevitably antagonise Moscow. Ukrainian political analyst James Hydzik said the president had put the country in Moscow's crosshairs. He said: "Protestations of neutrality from the Ukrainian government are not helped by the visit , at least from the Russian standpoint."

more at link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/2552925/Ukraine-imposes-restrictions-on-Russian-navy.html

[Muttocracy]

1. spreading....nt