Tit for tat

last updated 8 January 2015

Sevastopol, Ukraine

Ukraine warned this week that it might try to retaliate for Russia’s recent raising of gas prices by drastically hiking the rent it charges for use of a Crimean port. Ukrainian Defense Minister Anatoly Gritsenko told Kiev’s Kommersant Daily that it was “fully possible” for Ukraine to demand $400 million a year for Russia to base its Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol, instead of the $93 million a year stipulated in the port’s lease. “If relations have moved from the category of ‘brotherly’ to the category of ‘fair market’ in the energy sector,” Gritsenko said, “it’s logical to consider that such a step will be carried out in other sectors of Ukrainian-Russian relations.”