Russia & Ukraine haggle over Black Sea Fleet

In Ukraine, police attempting to seize a lighthouse in the Black Sea have once again been stopped from entering by a representative of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

A Ukrainian court had ordered the station should be handed from Russia to Ukraine.

The Black Sea Fleet says the decision to hand the lighthouse over can only be made at governmental level.

The dispute over the Fleet and its land-based objects began after the collapse of the Soviet Union when Ukraine and Russia had to share the Black sea and its fleet.

In 1997 the two countries signed a Partition Treaty in which Ukraine agreed to lease major parts of its new bases to the Russian Fleet until 2017.

However, there were ongoing tensions over the cost of the leases.