Was there a previous conflict between Russia and Ukraine over the Black Sea Fleet, and how was it resolved?

When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the successor states divided its armed forces according to the territorial principle. The formations stationed on Ukrainian territory were to become, together with all their property, part of the Ukrainian army.

What set Russia and Ukraine at loggerheads over the navy was not the partition as such but the fact that the Black Sea Fleet's prin­cipal naval base in Sevastopol became part of Ukraine. There was simply no way to move the large navy to the eastern (Russian) shore of the Black Sea, where no convenient harbors existed. Just before the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist in December 1991, the cen­tral naval command transferred the only Soviet full-size aircraft car­rier from the Black to the Northern Sea, so as to secure it for Russia, but hundreds of other ships remained. To complicate matters fur­ther, the city of Sevastopol occupied a nearly mythical place in Russian historical memory because of the city's heroic defense in both the Crimean War and World War II. Although in both cases it was defended by multinational troops, which including Ukrainians, these events became enshrined as “Russian” in imperial war my­thology, a historical elision that persisted throughout the tsarist and Soviet eras and which continues to be perpetuated in Putin's Russia.

In 1992 the presidents of both Russia and Ukraine issued decrees claiming jurisdiction over the Black Sea Fleet before agreeing to operate it jointly for three years. In reality, this meant preserving the status quo: a de facto Russian navy on Ukrainian territory. At the same time, Ukraine started building its own small naval force in the port city of Odesa, which is not on the Crimean Peninsula. The Ukrainian-built frigate Hetman Sahaidachny (commissioned in 1993) became the flagship of the Ukrainian navy. Most other ships then constructed or repaired in Ukrainian docks were sold for scrap metal, often as a result of corrupt deals, with none more spectacular than that involving the unfinished aircraft carrier Varyag, which was acquired by a Hong Kong company for US$20 million as a floating casino, but was ultimately commissioned as China's first aircraft carrier, Liaoning.

By 1995 Russo-Ukrainian tensions over Crimea eased, and the two sides agreed in principle to divide the fleet, with both navies stationed in Sevastopol. This deal was formalized as part of the 1997 “Big Treaty" on friendship and cooperation that also included Russian recognition of Ukraine's territorial integrity, an implicit ref­erence to the status of the Crimea. According to the 1997 agreement, Russia received 81.7 percent of the ships, and Ukraine 18.3 percent. Ukraine did not keep its share, selling some ships to Russia and scrapping some others. The coastal facilities had to be transferred to Ukraine and then leased to Russia, with the lease amount reducing Ukraine's gas debt. The 20-year renewable lease was supposed to ex­pire in 2017. As part of the deal, in addition to 388 ships, Russia was entitled to keep ground forces subordinated to the naval command in the Crimea; this provision would be used during Russia's absorp­tion of the Crimea in 2014. These forces could number up to 25,000 in strength and included a fixed number of aircraft, artillery sys­tems, and armored vehicles.

After 1997 the tiny Ukrainian navy shared the Sevastopol harbor with its much larger Russian counterpart and the two even conducted joint exercises and parades when interstate relations were good. At the same time, Ukrainian ships participated in in­ternational exercises and missions, including some NATO oper­ations. Aside from a handful of model ships maintained in good order for such occasions, notably Hetman Sahaidachny, the Ukrainian authorities neglected their navy. Officer salaries were several times lower than in the Russian Black Sea Fleet across the harbor and the replacement of ships long overdue.

Realizing that its Black Sea Fleet was becoming obsolete as well, Russia began funding an ambitious new ship construction program during the first decade of the 2000s. However, it featured mostly updated Soviet designs, and none of the frigate-class ships was ready by 2015. During the Russo- Georgian War of 2008, Russian ships from Sevastopol took part in a battle with Georgian ships off the eastern shores of the Black Sea, the first naval engagement in the region since World War II. In 2010 Russia signed an agreement with the Yanukovych administration to extend its lease on the port facilities in Sevastopol to 2042 in exchange for a discounted gas price, an agreement that caused public protests in Ukraine. The Russian parliament terminated this document unilaterally after the annexation of the Crimea.