Russian security service personnel may return to Ukraine's Crimea in the near future as part of a reset in relations between the two former Soviet republics, a business daily said on Wednesday.
Ukraine ordered 19 Federal Security Service (FSB) officers to leave Crimea's Sevastopol, where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based, late last year.
However, victory in February's presidential elections for "pro-Russian" candidate Viktor Yanukovych has led to a dramatic improvement in bilateral ties, which soured under the previous president, Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko had pledged to force the Russian fleet to leave Crimea when its lease expired in 2017. But, under a deal finalized last month, Ukraine agreed to prolong the lease for 25 years in exchange for a 30% discount on Russian gas.
Kommersant said that an agreement to bring the Russian officers back to the base could be signed at a May 19-20 meeting between the heads of the two countries' security services in Ukraine's Odessa. The FSB officers could return within a month of the signing, the paper said.
The move would come as part of a wider cooperation deal between the two security services, the paper said, citing officials at the Russia and Ukrainian foreign ministries.
"Russia raised the issue of the return of the FSB officers to the Black Sea fleet base almost immediately after Viktor Yanukovych's election victory," a Ukrainian diplomat was quoted by the paper as saying.
In another sign of the warmer relations between the two countries, the paper said that a Russian FSB officer detained in Odessa in January of suspicion of espionage could soon be freed.
The paper said talks to bring the officer home had begun soon after Yanukovych came to power. Kommersant did not rule out that the release of the officer, whose identity has not been revealed, may have already taken place.
MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti)
