As the Russians continue to build a dike in what they call the “common” Strait of Kerch for the second week, this raises still more unanswered questions. To find the answers, a group of ten Verkhovna Rada deputies led by Anatoly Matviyenko arrived at Kerch and Tuzla Island on October 17. Mr. Matviyenko told journalists at the Simferopol airport that his mission was to render on-the-spot assistance to border guards as well as try to find answers to some questions so that Ukraine can work out a political position on this problem. First, we want to understand why the Russians are carrying out the construction so surreptitiously that they do not answer the queries of the Kerch and Crimea authorities despite existing agreements on cooperation, he said. Why do they still keep in secret the final line of construction towards the Ukrainian border? What did Presidents Kuchma of Ukraine and Putin of Russia discuss on the island of Biriuchy, and why Pres. Putin held a meeting with Krasnodar Territory army and police chiefs immediately afterward? The deputies intend to visit the Ukrainian border security post, meet the leaders of Kerch and the Crimea, and discuss the situation with environmental experts on the spot. The Verkhovna Rada task force includes People’s Deputy and Academician Kostiantyn Sytnyk, entrusted with analyzing the ecological information related to the Kerch region and the likely consequences of the construction.
Still, it is now clear, in spite of some vagueness, that the dike the Russians are putting up so secretively and speedily is of no other than political importance. It is a completely useless structure from the practical point of view; secondly, environmental experts claim this will not solve the problems allegedly besetting the “Cossacks” of Taman, and will do Taman and the Crimea only harm. Even if the promises of Moscow and Krasnodar officials that the dike will not go beyond Russian territory are trustworthy, one should admit that the true goal of this project runs counter to that announced by the Russians. For instance, Crimean experts believe that if the builders really wanted the dike to protect the Taman shore, they should have drawn up a better feasibility report.
First, Oleh Osadchy, Mayor of Kerch and Deputy at the Crimean Supreme Council, said the dike construction threatens unpredictable environmental consequences. For example, this construction may cause the death and reduced population of the valuable fish species, increase the probability of the navigable segment of the Strait of Kerch silting up, and raise the water level in the Bay of Taman, which may in turn cause the island and the Taman peninsula to be flooded. Therefore, the dike will only put Taman at a still greater risk rather than solve any problems of protecting it.
Secondly, Mr. Osadchy believes that, judging by the precipitate pace of construction, the dike is not designed to reinforce the shoreline, as the Russian side claims. “In all probability, the Krasnodar territorial administration is pursuing a different goal — to link this dike with the island of Tuzla,” the mayor said. He stressed he was surprised why the administrations of Krasnodar Territory and Temriuk district have taken a wait-and-see approach and think it unnecessary to answer the repeated queries of Kerch authorities. This is all the more strange because Temriuk district and Kerch have signed a cooperation agreement, Mr. Osadchy noted. The Kerch mayor announced that the Kerch City Council’s next session will appeal to the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to resolve the dike construction dispute. “These matters should be settled by politicians,” he stressed.
Mr. Osadchy added that dozens of Kerch businesses and offices were requesting that the local authorities urge the leadership in Ukraine and Russia to intervene and settle the dispute over the dike being built by the Russians in the strait. They believe this construction will seriously affect Ukraine’s economy. According to the mayor, the Kerch merchant marine port is already sustaining millions of hryvnias in losses because the ever-rising levee obstructs navigation in the Strait of Kerch. This situation may reduce revenue from the canal toll as well as other taxes.
Thirdly, in the severe weather conditions of the Strait of Kerch, especially in winter, a 0.75 meter high and 17 meter wide (not 30 meters, as erroneously reported earlier) dike is too flimsy a structure to be of any practical importance. The first serious storm will totally destroy the Russian dike because it is not being reinforced with piles, the Kerch mayor told a press conference in the Kerch City Hall.
The mayor also said the current situation had been coming to a head for a long time. In his view, three years ago the Russian Krasnodar Territory Cossack organizations laid claim to Ukraine’s Tuzla Island. As they say in Kerch, whoever controls the island of Tuzla controls the Strait of Kerch, the mayor added. He noted that a conflict over Tuzla would inflict considerable losses on the Kerch merchant marine port which owns the Kerch-Yenikal Canal, a source of shipment tolls. Moreover, the island hosts the Kerch port’s health spa, where about 4,000 people annually spend their vacations.
Thus, although Tuzla is not too valuable as a territory, it is obviously a very good political instrument for exerting pressure on Ukraine, as far as use of the Strait of Kerch and the Sea of Azov is concerned. In the view of the Crimean population, the Russians will really stop building the dike on October 25, with 600 meters to go to the Ukrainian border, but the main intrigue will start precisely at that moment. The common perception in the Crimea is that this project will show its true objective on October 30, when Kyiv will receive Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov for talks over the Sea of Azov and the Strait of Kerch. The dike would come in quite handy.
What scenarios are possible for the dike? Relying on the dike as a political factor, Mr. Ivanov might suggest that Ukraine and Russia jointly finish the dike and then design and build a bridge to the Crimean shore, with Russia establishing actual control over the Strait of Kerch. Should the Ukrainians reject this, he could hint that Tuzla might be taken by force. Many people in the Crimean are convinced that, despite all statements of the Ukrainian Border Security Force, this country is not capable of resisting Russian pressure. First, nobody in the Crimea has any doubts that Ukraine will not go to war with Russia because this is simply mindless. Nor do they doubt that, in case Ukraine stands its ground, Russia could apply military force against the Ukrainian defenders of Tuzla and will be able to win even without resorting to firearms — just by landing a commando unit that would engage in hand-to-hand combat. For an amphibious landing exercise has already been held in Taman. Neither the easy-to-break Ukrainian dredge brought in on the instruction of the Crimean Civil Defense Director Serhiy Kunitsyn in order to deepen the sea as the dike approaches the border, neither the antitank hedgehogs put up in Tuzla by border guards, nor the coast guard boats would constitute serious obstacles for the Russian commandos. It is no accident that the Russian Security Service held a “ferry hostage liberation exercise” precisely in Kerch six months ago. Ukrainian Security Service officers will perhaps recall that exercise because they were so elated over this “cooperation” in a joint “counterterrorist” action. As far as we recall, Russian commandos who captured the ferry in two minutes without resorting to weapons.
Should the Russians take full control of the Strait of Kerch, they will stop paying Ukraine the canal toll and pilotage (hundreds of millions of dollars) and allow their ships to go free of charge through the strait. Naturally, appealing to the world community will be a far more effective way of defending Ukraine in this situation than military force. First, when Ukraine was scrapping its nuclear arms, the major nuclear countries — including Russia! — guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and, secondly, the whole infrastructure in the Strait of Kerch has always belonged to the Kerch port. Therefore, all payments for ship servicing in this area should be made to this enterprise, while Kerch and its port both belong to Ukraine.
On the other hand, the dike has obvious political and economic value for the Russians. Now that the political capital of Chechnya victories has dwindled, a victorious little war or at leas a “peaceful” but triumphant battle for a new territory would be very opportune on the eve of elections. By gaining Tuzla, Russia will acquire the whole Strait of Kerch, which will allow it to dominate the Sea of Azov and distribute the local resources in a “brotherly” manner.
Once events take such a turn, everybody will lose any interest in the dike. The latter can be washed away by storms, giving way to a gully, as happened in 1925, but neither the Taman “Cossacks” nor the Russian government will ever complain about the danger of Taman coastal erosion. On the other hand, business circles in the Kuban and Crimea will persistently suggest finishing construction of the dike, i.e., reinforcing it with piles and making it wide enough to carry a highway and a railroad, as well as building a bridge from Tuzla to the Crimea — why not if the latter is just two kilometers away! Why should a good thing go waste? But this project is unlikely to materialize because the estimated cost of such construction will be too high compared to the current freight traffic. Incidentally, this project is over a century old, and nobody has ever managed to implement it — except for the bridge built in 1944 from German materials and ignominiously ruined by Azov pack ice in February 1945. The same fate could befall the dike. The sea itself will reject the Russian idea. But it will still be too late for us. The Crimean public believes now is just the right time to turn to the world community for help, otherwise the principle of Big Brotherly relations will triumph once more.
