MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - Disputes between Ukraine and Russia's Black Sea Fleet are being handled by the Foreign Ministry, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Friday.
Ukrainian officials last week seized a Crimean lighthouse, to which Russia said its Black Sea Fleet's hydrographic service had the rights. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed all hydrographic facilities on the country's Crimea coast belonged to Ukraine.
And earlier this week the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry condemned as illegal Russia's dredging of the seabed in the Kerch Strait, the Soviet-era border between the two countries.
Ukraine's recent moves have recalled tensions that developed between the two countries in 2003, when Russia's attempt to construct a dam at Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait provoked a bitter three-month dispute with its neighbor.
