KIEV, Ukraine – Lawmakers brawled, threw eggs at each other and set off smoke bombs in Ukraine's parliament Tuesday as the legislature erupted into chaos over a vote allowing the Russian navy to keep using a port on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian nationalists who resented Moscow's long dominance of their land regarded the Russian fleet's presence as tantamount to military occupation. Former pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko had vowed that the fleet's lease of the port would not be renewed when it expired in 2017.
Yanukovych and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev agreed last week that the lease would be extended for 25 years past that expiration. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Kiev on Monday to discuss the matter with Yanukovych.
Source: AP, Yahoo News
The Kremlin's influence has surged in Ukraine since the election victory of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, infuriating Ukrainians who resent Moscow's influence, and inflaming the violent passions that plague the politics of the former Soviet republic.
The controversy over the home port for the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been one of the most emotionally fraught consequences of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russia found one of its major fleets headquartered in a foreign country's port — Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula that extends from mainland Ukraine into the Black Sea. Sevastopol is about 200 miles from the nearest Russian territory.
Ukrainian nationalists who resented Moscow's long dominance of their land regarded the Russian fleet's presence as tantamount to military occupation. Former pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko had vowed that the fleet's lease of the port would not be renewed when it expired in 2017.
Yanukovych and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev agreed last week that the lease would be extended for 25 years past that expiration. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Kiev on Monday to discuss the matter with Yanukovych.
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