Thread: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet gains a base in Abkhazia after war with Georgia

Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
November 26, 2008 — Volume 5, Issue 227

IN THIS ISSUE:
*Russia’s Black Sea Fleet gains a base in Abkhazia after war with Georgia
*…..and compromises naval security in the Black Sea

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A Rogue Fleet in the Black Sea

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet operated with total impunity—political and legal, as well as military—against Georgia during the August war. Breaching the neutrality of Ukraine, where it is mainly based, and tearing apart international maritime law, the Russian fleet’s actions exploited the vacuum of Western power and international authority in the Black Sea. With the United States and NATO distracted elsewhere and complacent about Russia and the Turkish government seeking a special relationship with the Kremlin, the Russian fleet enjoyed a free hand to attack Georgia and to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty in the process.

The Russian Defense Ministry’s official newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda has published a lengthy narrative about one part of the naval operations against Georgia. This account suggests that in late July the Russian fleet was already rehearsing the operation against Georgia that was to follow in August (just as Russian forces in the North Caucasus practiced a ground operation against Georgia) in late July and up to August 2.

According to this partial account, a naval group including the large landing ships Tsezar Kunikov, Saratov, and Yamal, as well as four smaller combat ships, most of them based in Sevastopol, took part in the combined-arms exercise Caucasus-2008. These ships and their personnel practiced “landing by assault troops on an unfortified shoreline” on Russia’s Black Sea coast, after which they did not return to Sevastopol but anchored in Novorossiysk from July 25 onward, awaiting further orders.

These ships launched the naval operation on August 8, landed naval infantry near Sokhumi, crossed what Russia calls the “Abkhaz-Georgian maritime border” (that is, deep inside Georgia’s internationally recognized territorial waters) on August 9, issued an attack warning against any vessel within a 35-mile radius, and sank (or so the narrative implies) two Georgian coastguard cutters on the high sea. The Russian naval group then proceeded to “screen” Georgia’s Poti harbor, where Russian troops sank the remaining Georgian coastguard cutters at their piers in the harbor (Krasnaya Zvezda, October 29, via BBC Monitoring Global Newsline, November 24).

As an outcome of this war, Russia has substantially expanded its de facto shoreline, territorial waters, and economic zone in the Black Sea by absorbing Abkhazia. This expansion has no legal basis; but Russia is enforcing it in practice, and no one will challenge it in the foreseeable future.

The Russian fleet can police this expanded area by operating out of Novorossiysk on the Russian coast and, soon, out of Abkhazia. The Russians plan to create a naval or coastguard station in Sokhumi and have begun rebuilding the naval base at Ochamchire in the southern part of Abkhazia. In Soviet times Ochamchire was used as a submarine base at one stage and for the coastguard at another time. Abandoned in the early 1990s, the base is now being repossessed by the Russians as a valuable asset due to its location inside a bay.

At the moment, Russian divers and other naval specialists are busy measuring the depth and other characteristics of the Ochamchire base, preparatory to defining its role for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet or the coastguard. When reactivated, probably starting in 2009, the Ochamchire base will operate in close coordination with three other Russian military installations in Abkhazia: the Gudauta land and air base (which the Russians are now refurbishing), the FSB border troops in the Gali district (created in October to face the rest of Georgia), and the planned naval station in Sokhumi. Under the Russian Navy’s modernization program, sixteen new ships are said to be planned for delivery to the Black Sea Fleet by 2015 (RIA Novosti, November 21; Messenger, November 24).

Inasmuch as the new ships will take up berthing space at Novorossiysk, Ochamchire, and Sokhumi, this will undoubtedly become an excuse for Russian foot-dragging on withdrawing the fleet from Sevastopol, where the lease from Ukraine will expire in 2017. Given that fleet’s size, the relocation from Sevastopol to Russian Black Sea ports would probably have to commence by 2010 in order to be completed on schedule. Moscow, however, takes the position that talks with Ukraine on withdrawing the fleet can be held when the 2017 deadline draws near. This would practically ensure the Russian fleet’s stay in Ukraine past the deadline, with or without Ukrainian consent to prolong the basing agreement (see EDM, October 23).

—Vladimir Socor



Addressing Naval Imbalance in the Black Sea After the Russian-Georgian War

During the last decade a network of maritime security arrangements developed in the Black Sea, with all riparian countries participating. These arrangements center on the BLACKSEAFOR activities, the Black Sea Harmony operation, and a few other joint projects on maritime security. Focused on handling post-modern (“new-type”) challenges to security, and partly turning from means to that end into ends in themselves, these arrangements ultimately provided a multilateral cover on Russo-Turkish naval joint sovereignty. This de facto condominium has excluded NATO naval presence as such from the Black Sea, to the frustration of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria and NATO aspirants Georgia and Ukraine.

BLACKSEAFOR, Black Sea Harmony, and the rest proved completely irrelevant during Russia’s attack on Georgia and in its aftermath. They lack the mandate and the means to deal with real security issues and can not even set the agenda of internal discussions without unanimous consent, that is, without Russian consent in the case of the Russian-Georgian conflict. These collective arrangements proved equally irrelevant when Russia’s Black Sea Fleet breached Ukraine’s neutrality, using its territory to attack Georgia.

Ukrainian President Yushchenko and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested against this flagrant violation and demanded that the Russian fleet notify Ukraine in advance each time its ships crossed Ukraine’s maritime border in the future. Moscow replied disdainfully to the protests, and the Russian fleet has disregarded Ukraine’s prenotification request.

This situation again demonstrated Russia’s willingness to exploit its naval superiority against its Black Sea neighbors. With Turkey watching passively from the sidelines and NATO responding with a one-time visit by five ships in September, it has fallen to the United States to address the imbalance in the aftermath of the Russian operation.

From the August war to date, the United States has maintained an uninterrupted naval presence in the Black Sea. That presence is constrained, however, by the Montreux Convention’s limitations on naval tonnage passing through the Turkish Straits and duration of naval visits in the Black Sea. The United States has therefore rotated its ships in the Black Sea at intervals consistent with that convention.

The Sixth Fleet’s flagship USS Mount Whitney, destroyers USS Dallas and Barry, oceanographic ship Pathfinder, and other U.S. ships have been cruising in the Black Sea and visiting Georgian, Bulgarian, and Romanian ports, as well as Ukraine’s naval port in Sevastopol. The Mount Whitney’s second visit ended on November 19 and has been followed seamlessly by the USS Barry on a two-week mission (AGERPRES, November 20).

Although largely symbolic, these naval visits provide a visible demonstration of U.S. security commitments in the region. Beyond symbolism, however, the naval imbalance between Russia and its neighbors needs to be addressed in practical terms, following the attack on Georgia.

The United States and Ukraine are discussing the possibility of the U.S. handing over two frigates of the Oliver Hazard Perry class, armed with guided missiles, to the Ukrainian Navy. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Ukrainian Defense Minster Yuriy Yekhanurov broke this news on the October 8 during a meeting in Ohrid of the defense ministers of South-East European countries. The discussions are in progress.

First built in the 1970s by the United States, frigates of this class are equipped for anti-submarine and surface combat as well as for air defense. According to Ukrainian sources, the U.S. Navy currently has 30 frigates of this class on active duty and another nine in reserve. From 1994 to 2002 the United States handed over four frigates of this class to Egypt, seven to Turkey, and one to Bahrain, and built four of them for the Australian Navy. Frigates of this class are regarded as far more advanced and powerful than any ship in the Ukrainian Navy’s inventory (UNIAN, October 9; Glavred, November 18).

Some West European countries also show an interest in improving Ukraine’s naval capabilities, following the Russian fleet’s defiance of Ukrainian sovereignty. Dutch diplomats and the Swedish Defense Attaché in Ukraine met on November 19 with the Ukrainian Navy’s commander, Admiral Ihor Teniukh, at the Ukrainian naval base in Sevastopol. They discussed possible Dutch participation in the Sea Breeze-2009 exercise (an annual U.S.-led exercise in Ukrainian coastal areas) and possible cooperation by Sweden with the Ukrainian Navy’s reform program. (UNIAN, November 19).

Following Russia’s invasion of Georgia, NATO has disinvited Russia from the alliance’s Active Endeavor operation in the Mediterranean (where Russian participation was only token in any case). It remains to be seen whether BLACKSEAFOR activities will continue business as usual with the Russian fleet, after its attack on Georgia and breach of Ukrainian neutrality. For its part, Turkey seems set to proceed with Black Sea Harmony unperturbed by Russia’s recent conduct.