2003: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

A tiny island in the news: the dispute over Tuzla

The events surrounding Tuzla Island beginning in September had to change the way Ukraine, and especially the presidential administration of Leonid Kuchma viewed the politics of Russia.

While the political leaders, including the presidents of both countries, had always publicly enjoyed a cozy political relationship, suddenly a small lightly inhabited island in the Kerch Strait, which is the waterway that separates the two countries, became a central point of intense friction in a political dispute in which neither side was ready to give an inch and which easily could have led to conflict had Russia not backed down.

It was one of the first times, as well, that Ukraine showed that it meant it when it told its big northerly neighbor, "no!"

The Tuzla crisis began near the end of September, when trucks carrying sand, stone and mortar began to reinforce the northern shore of Russia's Taman Peninsula and build a dike-like extension into the Kerch Strait.

When the Moscow press discovered a very silent but intense construction operation going on at the tip of the Taman Peninsula, which included scores of heavy, earth-moving equipment and hundreds of workers, the reaction from Kyiv was surprise, especially because the building of the dike - what the Russian and Ukrainian press referred to as a dam - was heading directly for the Ukrainian territory of Tuzla, a 7-kilometer-long stretch of land located about 5.5 kilometers from where the Russian project had begun.

The situation worsened after Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry sent three diplomatic notes to Moscow, none of which was answered. Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry maintained an official line which had that the construction project was not supported by Moscow, but initiated as a result of an oversight by officials in Russia's Krasnodar region, to which the Taman Peninsula is attached.

After receiving an unconvincing explanation about Russia's intentions from Russia's ambassador to Ukraine, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry dispatched Assistant Foreign Minister Oleksander Motsyk to find out what was going on. He returned empty-handed on October 3 to Kyiv, where he told journalists that evidence suggested that the construction of the dam was an attempt by Moscow to obtain a strategic advantage in stalled negotiations on how to divide the Kerch Strait.

The Ukrainian diplomat explained that the waters off Tuzla were considered Ukrainian territory, and Russia had no right to penetrate a 1-kilometer zone around the island, which was situated 5.5 kilometers (about 3 miles) northwest of the Taman Peninsula. Mr. Motsyk also noted that a Russian-Ukrainian accord from 1994 declared that if any construction or development took place in the Kerch region the other side was to receive advance notification - an agreement that Moscow seemed to have violated with its action.

The island, considered part of Russia before being turned over to the Ukrainian SSR in the early 1950s, had little economic, commercial or social significance. The concern was that if the land mass was connected to the Russian-owned Taman Peninsula, which juts into the Kerch Strait, Russia could assert that it had simply reattached what was a historic piece of Russian property. If successful it could have received strategic advantage in its ongoing negotiations over where and even whether there should be a line of delineation between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait that connects it to the Black Sea. Russia would like to see both bodies of water jointly owned by the two countries, which would allow Russia control over access to them. It would also give Russia access to the Ukrainian side, where fish are more abundant and oil might be as well.

The Russian effort to connect Tuzla with the Taman Peninsula, if completed, effectively would have recreated what had existed in nature until 1925, when a series of violent storms swept away a sand and stone spit that had kept the island and the peninsula joined.

President Leonid Kuchma tried to downplay the severity of the situation during comments on October 6 from Yalta, where he was preparing for a summit with leaders of the European Union. When asked by journalists whether he believed the incident could lead to a border conflict, Mr. Kuchma responded, "I do not accept such a statement. I will never believe that is possible."

Nonetheless, the Ukrainian president voiced his displeasure with Russia's behavior, describing his reaction to the unexpected construction as "negative." He added: "You know, it is somewhat funny, I look at the map of Russia, but it turns out they still want more."

When Ukraine indicated that it reserved the right to use all action it deemed appropriate, including turning to the United Nations Security Council, Moscow's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov finally met with his counterpart Kostyantyn Gryshchenko and assured Ukrainian diplomats that there was no intention to violate Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine sent border troops into the Kerch Strait on October 10 after Russia continued construction of the dike, to reinforce normal border patrols with additional troops. Mykola Lytvyn, director of Ukraine's State Border Services, visited the island on October 13, and announced that a detachment of an unspecified number of border guards had arrived the previous Friday in response to the Russian actions. Mr. Lytvyn said the troops had full authority, short of the use of firepower, to enforce the border. The border guards were equipped with spotlights, radar, engineering equipment and communications systems to make certain that the Russian construction effort does not violate Ukrainian territory and to keep Kyiv officials abreast of the latest developments.

On October 15, Novyi Kanal, a prominent Ukrainian television network, reported that Russia's minister of foreign affairs had said that the current dispute would quickly be resolved if Ukraine would agree not to delimit the Sea of Azov, as Russia and its neighbors have already agreed to do in the Caspian Sea, ostensibly because Tuzla Island would then be jointly owned.

That same day Ukraine's Minister of Defense Yevhen Marchuk offered that a better idea would be for Ukraine and Russia to address the United Nations Security Council to present both sides of the disagreement and then allow that body to decide the best solution. Mr. Marchuk, who is a former general in the Soviet KGB and an ex-prime minister of Ukraine, acknowledged that Ukraine would take that step only if Russia should violate the Ukrainian border.

After a hearing on October 15, the Verkhovna Rada approved a resolution, with 250 lawmakers in support, demanding that Russia halt construction of the dam. It called on Russia's upper house of Parliament, the Federation Council, "to intervene to halt any unilateral actions that contradict the principles of good neighborly relations and the strategic partnership between the two states." The Ukrainian Parliament declared that should Moscow refuse to comply with Ukrainian demands it reserved the right "to initiate all measures provided by international legal norms to guarantee the sovereignty of the state," including turning to the United Nations Security Council and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The Parliament also noted that the barrier being constructed was of itself an ecological hazard, as it would change the currents in the strait with unforeseen consequences likely.

The diplomatic tussle escalated to full-blown crisis beginning on October 20 when Moscow questioned Ukraine's sovereignty over the tiny island and demanded proof of it's right to it. The same day, Kyiv supplanted a border guard detachment that had been carrying out border defense exercises since October 10 with 14 gunboats and aircraft to patrol the area around the Ukrainian-Russian border, which is found 150 meters southeast of the shore of Tuzla.

Two days later, with construction moving to within 200 meters of Tuzla Island, Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma curtailed a state visit to Latin America to return to Kyiv to keep rein over an increasingly vitriolic dialogue between the diplomats of the two states. Upon arrival, Mr. Kuchma immediately flew to the island to meet with Ukrainian officials monitoring the construction of the dike, which the Ukrainian and Russian press refer to as a dam.

As the Ukrainian president returned from Brazil, Ukrainian border troops moved pontoon boats into place to block any attempt to extend the dike into Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile Ukraine's armed forces conducted unexpected military training exercises at Chauda, located 70 kilometers (50 miles) south of Tuzla at the southern tip of the Kerch Peninsula. The one-day training, which Ukrainian military officials said was planned in advance, included live-fire exercises and the use of MiG 29 and SU-27 jet aircraft.

With authorities on both sides of the confrontation increasingly warning that the situation could escalate out of control, Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych called for calm and the use of diplomacy to defuse the situation. "We cannot allow this to turn into armed conflict," warned Mr. Yanukovych on October 21. "We must resolve this at the negotiating table."

On October 22 the prime minister's office announced that Mr. Yanukovych had canceled a trip to Estonia and would fly instead to Moscow on October 24 to meet with his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kasyanov, to address the Tuzla issue. The agreement to meet came only after Mr. Yanukovych made a personal phone call to Mr. Kasyanov's office. Earlier in the day Russian officials said the Tuzla matter would be discussed only at a previously scheduled meeting of foreign ministers set for October 30.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who until that point had remained uncharacteristically quiet as the crisis evolved, ordered Krasnodar Krai officials to halt construction of the dike on October 22. The Ukrainian press reported that construction was suspended for an hour near midnight, but resumed early in the morning of October 23. Ukrainian government television stated on October 23 that Presidents Putin and Kuchma had held their first telephone conversation on the matter that day, but did not give details.

Later on October 23 Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, in an uncharacteristic show of unity, passed a resolution condemning the Russian actions as "an unfriendly act that will force Ukraine to revise its current relations with the Russian Federation," with 369 of the 450 members of the Parliament supporting the declaration.

At a press briefing on October 21 Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Markian Lubkivskyi stated that Ukraine categorically could not accept the possibility that Russia might link the dike to the island. "I would like to emphasize that Ukraine will not allow for this in any circumstance," explained Mr. Lubkivskyi, adding that Tuzla "is Ukrainian, just as Lviv is part of Ukraine, or Kyiv."

Meanwhile the chief of staff to Russia's president set a confrontational and dangerous tone in an off the cuff statement he later called a joke, which he made to a Ukrainian delegation of journalists on October 21. "If need be we will do all that is possible and impossible to maintain our position. If need be we can drop a bomb there," said Aleksander Voloshin, according to various press accounts.

While underscoring its "deep concern" over the Russian demand for documentation of Ukraine's right to Tuzla, Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry responded by enumerating a series of treaties and documents, beginning with a 1954 agreement that included Tuzla as part of the Crimean Peninsula territory that was moved from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR under the Soviet Union through to the 1997 agreement of friendship, cooperation and partnership between the now-independent states of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, which the Russian State Duma ratified in 1998. It noted that all official cartographic drawings and maps showed Tuzla Island as part of Ukrainian territory.

Russian lawmakers, members of the Russian Parliament's upper house, who were in Kyiv for an inter-parliamentary conference on October 21-22, for the most part also disagreed with Ukraine's official diplomatic stance. "The construction of the dam is taking place on Russian territory, so it is strange to hear that we need to prove the reason why we are doing it," explained Serhii Mironov, the head of the Federation Council. Mr. Mironov explained that the point of the project was to develop an "exclusively hydro-technical construction," to prevent the further erosion of the Taman Peninsula coastline, which has already caused agricultural damage.

NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, who was on a farewell visit to Kyiv on October 20, said after a meeting with Mr. Kuchma that NATO did not expect to get involved in the Tuzla dispute and that the Ukrainian president had not asked for NATO assistance. He said that at this point the issue remained for Kyiv and Russia to resolve. U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst agreed with that assessment in a separate statement he made after a conference of the Ukraine-NATO Civic League. Responding to a question on whether the United States was ready to support Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty, as it had agreed to do when Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994, Mr. Herbst stated: "The United States supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. The U.S. is also friendly with both Russia and Ukraine, and hopes that they will be able to work out this problem."

On October 27 President Kuchma signaled that Ukraine could turn onto a more direct path towards Europe. Noting his displeasure with the re-emergence of Russian imperialistic ambition, he said, "The recent events will force us to reconsider our foreign policy once again." Mr. Kuchma added that Ukraine would abandon the Single Economic Space agreement should the Russian dike ever cross the Ukrainian border.

One positive result of the crisis some said was that negotiations to delimit the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov would restart with more vigorous energy. And that did in fact happen.

However, just to be sure that the island was not encroached upon again, Ukraine announced on December 8 that it would dig a channel in the Kerch Strait between Tuzla and the Taman Peninsula. Ukraine's Minister of Transportation Heorhii Kirpa made the announcement and said the project was developed to save the island from erosion caused by the Russian dike, which had caused a major change of currents in the area. Mr. Kirpa also said that the channel would open a second shipping lane for shallow-hulled ships and relieve some of the congestion in the strait as well.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 11, 2004, No. 2, Vol. LXXII

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