Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to increase the volume of ship repair work in the Crimea during a televised phone-in.
"The ship-repair potential needs to be concentrated at Crimean shipyards. An order worth RUB 5 billion (USD 140 million) has already been sent," said the president of Russia. He did not disclose details of the contract.
Furthermore, according to Putin, some of the Black Sea Fleet’s modern ships of will be transferred from Novorossiysk to Sevastopol.
"We have had some agreements with Ukraine on upgrade of the fleet, but unfortunately these agreements were implemented very poorly or not implemented at all, and we had big problems with upgrades. Today, I hope there will be no such problems and that a significant part of the modern ships and supply vessels will be transferred from Novorossiysk to Sevastopol. This will enable us to even save money to a certain extent," Putin said.
