LISBON, June 24 – Ukraine said Tuesday its 20-year agreement with Russia over stationing of the Black Sea Fleet will not be extended after it expires in 2017, suggesting the Russian battleships would be forced to leave Sevastopol.

Volodymyr Ohryzko, the foreign minister, said: “There are no doubts that the Black Sea Fleet will have to withdraw as the agreement will expire on May 28, 2017.”

Ohryzko responded to comments from a top Russian diplomat suggesting that Russia has been willing to negotiate a higher rent for the bases in Sevastopol as an incentive for Ukraine to extend the agreement.

Russia currently pays about $100 million annually for the stationing of its Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, but Ukraine has been over the past two years pressing to hike the payment to between $400 million and $1.5 billion.

Russia, however, flatly refused to accept the higher rent payment. Moscow also postponed talks over important issues that Kiev had identified as urgent, such as inventory of BSF equipment and facilities, and providing names of the servicemen.

“It would be a distortion to say that everything is OK,” Ohryzko said in Lisbon as he accompanies President Viktor Yushchenko on a trip to Portugal.

“We have 12,000 military servicemen from another country on our soil,” Ohryzko said. “We do not know either their first names or last names.”

The comment highlights fears in Ukraine that the BSF may play a destabilizing role in Ukraine, especially in Crimea, an autonomous region with Russian ethnic majority.

The debate over the BSF comes as Russia has been persistently opposing Ukraine’s accession to NATO, warning that Moscow would have to respond by cutting trade and investments with Ukraine.

The presence of the Russian navy in Sevaspotol is linked to tension over Crimea, which was ceded to Ukraine during the Soviet era and became part of the independent Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Tensions over the naval base simmered this year after Ukraine requested a roadmap to NATO - a move strongly opposed by Russia. (tl/ez)