USS PORTER MET BY PROTESTERS IN SEVASTOPOL

USS Porter who called at Sevastopol Friday, February 17, was met by a crowd of protesters. Sevastopol is formally a Ukrainian city but its population is predominantly Russian. They hate Ukrainian rule and as the majority of other Crimeans wish to rejoin the Russian Federation. The protesters had brought to the port posters that read: “Say No To NATO, Say Yes To CIS Common Economic Space, No to Foreign Diktat”. “We don’t want Sevastopol to turn into a NATO base and we won’t tolerate turning our people into a NATO attending staff,”- said young militants who organised the demonstration.
USS Porter is based in Norfolk, Va. The Stars and Stripes reports that the US sailors are “midway through a five-month deployment. In early February, they sailed through the Turkish Straits to begin more than two weeks of training in the Black Sea and with Romanian and Ukrainian navies. Their mission is part of U.S. European Command’s focus on what military leaders often refer to as the push “south and east” of Europe”. The Ukrainian regime gives to the population of Sevastopol a different interpretation of the visit by the American destroyer: “USS Porter will stay in Sevastopol until February 20, says the Press center of the Ukraine's Naval Force. Her commanding officers will make a visit to the Main Staff of Ukrainian navy, where they will be received by Vice-Admiral Igor Knyaz, the Ukrainian navy commander, and Sevastopol Mayor Sergei Ivanov”. Only one sentence reveals the true intentions of the visit: “Next Monday, USS Porter and the Ukrainian flagship Slavutich will go out to sea for joint manoeuvring”.
The protest upset both Americans and their Ukrainian hosts. The press center of the Ukraine's Naval Force decided to get revenge. Their employees denied journalists bearing Russian citizenship to join a guided tour of the ship for the media and to attend a press conference. The ban applied also to Russian citizens who work for Ukrainian mainstream media outlets. The Crimean Committee sent a letter to the French group Reporters without Borders to inform it about violation of journalists’ rights by the Ukrainian Navy.