FSB officers briefly expelled from Crimea, Ukraine

In December 2009 FSB officers attached to the Black Sea Fleet were withdrawn from Crimea. Officially, 19 FSB operatives have been based in Sevastopol according to an agreement between the Ukrainian and Russian security services signed in 2000. Most of those FSB officers have been in Crimea since 2001. The FSB unit was re-located to Novorosiysk, Russia.

In June 2009, Ukrainian Security Service Chairman Valentyn Nalyvaichenko said that the 2000 agreement was annulled and all FSB workers operating within the fleet that are based in Sevastopol are to leave Ukraine by December 13. Nalyvaychenko pointed out that the 2000-2009 stationing of FSB officers in Sevastopol was illegal under Ukrainian law. “The protocol signed in 2000 whereby FSB units were stationed in the Crimea never was in conformity with Ukrainian legislation,” Nalyvaychenko revealed, meaning that President, Leonid Kuchma, had agreed to the stationing of the FSB by infringing Ukrainian law.

In May 2010, after the second round of Ukraine’s 2010 elections, Russia demanded that the new President, Viktor Yanukovych, undertake measures to improve relations between both countries. Moscow demanded that Yanukovych re-admit the Federal Security Service (FSB) to the Black Sea Fleet. As result, the SBU signed a five-year agreement with the FSB that will allow Moscow again to put intelligence agents in Crimea.

The agreement signed in May 2010 by the new SBU director Valeriy Khoroshkovsky and FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, reinstated the same level of SBU-FSB cooperation that existed between 2000 and 2009. One possible difference would be that the officers in question would have to be agreed with Ukraine, representing only a formality.

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