ANAPA, July 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday that moving a naval base from modern Ukraine to Russia would cost millions of dollars.
The project to move the base from Sevastopol, which is in the former Russian region of the Crimea, to Novorossiisk on the Black Sea (the Krasnodar region) and to open new naval bases along the coast may eventually cost billions of rubles, said the minister, who is currently in the Krasnodar region.
More than a billion rubles ($34.7 million) in budget allocations will be provided to build and develop the Russian naval base on the Black Sea next year, Ivanov told reporters.
He said, "the figure for 2007 has not been determined yet, but it will definitely exceed a billion rubles."
Ivanov said that Russia would continue renting the base in Sevastopol up to 2017, while gradually making the move to the Krasnodar region.
