US WILL TRAIN UKRAINIAN NAVY CADETS

An American delegation is visiting the Russian city of Sevastopol illegally occupied by the Ukraine. A group of US diplomats from the Section for Defence Cooperation at the US Embassy in Kiev is scheduled to arrive in Sevastopol Wednesday. The Tavrichesky Kurier* reports that the delegation will select candidates among the cadets of the Nakhimov Navy Institute for training in a variety of military skills. It is assumed that the training will be done according to the NATO standards. Some observers suspect that the Americans are taking steps to speed up Ukrainian membership in NATO. They are coming to Sevastopol at the backdrop of rising tensions between Moscow and Kiev over lighthouses being run now by the Russian Navy.

*The Tavrichesky Kurier is an on-line periodical of the Crimean Committee: www.freecrimea.org (in Russian)