MightyMacbeth said:
good question, but doesnt the colapse of the ussr have to do anything about it?
It's a long story...
The main base of the Black Sea fleet has always been in Sevastopol and around it. The Crimean Peninsula has been acquired by the Russian Empire from Turkey in th 18th century.
When the USSR has been created, Crimea was placed into the Russian Federation's domain. However, the majority of the local population was the Tatars(whose religion is Islam). During the WWII, some of them were helping Hitler, so Stalin has ordered to deport all of them to the Central Asia. And they were deported in the fall of 1944...
In their stead, the Ukrainian settlers have been brought from the neigbouring areas.
In 1954, Khruschov(Ukrainian by birth) has facilitated the transfer of this strategic peninsula to Ukraine(with some restitution in other areas). It has not made much of difference then, but has become very important after 1991 when the USSR has been disbanded and the Soviet Fleet of the Black Sea has become a subject of a bitter dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Finally, they split it, but the Russian Fleet still remains in Sevastopol as a leasee. Unfortunately for Russia, there is only one good harbor in the Russian territory - Novorossijsk, but it's very inconvenient for the Navy and is very heavily used by the Merchant Marine.
Ukraine, meanwhile, sees her future with the UE and NATO, but she can't even dream about it while the Russian troops are stationed on the Ukrainian soil... So, the Russians are going to build a new base somewhere else...
In this sad situation, a lot of ships and other assets have been lost or damaged. This is just one of them...
Many people think, however, that neither country needs a large Navy on the Black Sea locked by Turkey anyway.
