MOSCOW, December 12 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine could introduce "asymmetrical" military-political measures in response to Russia's new approach to economic relations with the country, particularly its desire to revise natural gas prices, a Russian newspaper said Monday.
An article published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta cited several military sources indicating that Ukraine was willing to give American experts access to its early-warning radar facilities in Sevastopol, a port city on the Black Sea, and Mukachevo in western Ukraine, which are exclusively used in Russia's interests at present.
According to several Ukrainian sources, U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko discussed this issue during a meeting in Kiev last Wednesday.
Colonel General Volter Kraskovsky, commander of Russia's missile defense
troops in 1986-1991, said Ukrainian-based radars could certainly be used in the interests of the U.S., which had been proactively expanding its own missile defense capability in Europe.
Commenting on the situation last Friday, the general said U.S. access to radars in Sevastopol and Mukachevo could significantly hurt Russia's missile defenses in the direction of central and southern Europe, as well as the Mediterranean. He also said the U.S. "could go as far as demanding the destruction of radars working for Russia."
However, radar facilities are not the only trump in Ukraine's retaliation to Russia's decision to raise gas prices from the current $50 per 1,000 cubic meters to the European level of $160. According to sources in Kiev, Ukraine could refuse to sign an intergovernmental agreement on the extension of the operation of 15P118M missile launchers for RS-20 heavy ballistic missiles (NATO classification Satan). The agreement was coordinated during a recent visit of the Ukrainian defense minister to Moscow and established that Ukraine would assist Russia in maintaining the systems that have been on combat duty for the past 15 years, for another 10-15 years.
With no agreement in sight, Russia will have to decommission the existing missiles and manufacture more new Topol-M systems, which would mean additional allocation of about $3-4 billion.
Therefore, the gas scandal between Russia and Ukraine is transforming into a more dangerous military-political confrontation, the newspaper said.
