On October 9, 1993, a war-torn Georgia had to legalize the Russian military presence in the country, and lease, among other military facilities, the Poti base to the Russian navy. However, Georgia continued, though fruitlessly, to claim the vessels formerly stationed at Poti as a part of a tripartite Russo-Ukrainian-Georgian dispute over the Soviet Black Sea Fleet shares. By September 1998, the Russian military personnel had been withdrawn from Poti to the Russian base at Batumi under a Russo-Georgian agreement signed earlier that year.