Russia’s approach to the Black Sea builds on a centuries-old history of confrontation with Europe’s major powers and on Russia’s long geopolitical rivalry with Turkey. Its goals include warding off any threat from NATO, either to the Russian heartland or its strategic bastion in Crimea. It also wants to undermine NATO’s cohesion by trying to stoke fissures between alliance members along the Black Sea, and to prevent Ukraine and Georgia from joining the alliance.
More broadly, Moscow sees the Black Sea region as vital to its geoeconomic strategy: to project Russian power and influence in the Mediterranean, protect its economic and trade links with key European markets, and make southern Europe more dependent on Russian oil and gas.
Keenly aware of the potential for instability to flow from the Middle East into Russia—particularly the North and South Caucasus—Russia also sees this body of water as an important security buffer zone, protecting it from the volatility that could emanate from further south.
Moscow depends on the Black Sea for access to the Mediterranean and beyond, both for military operations outside its immediate neighborhood and for exports of Russia’s main commodity (hydrocarbons). Moscow sees the Mediterranean as largely NATO-dominated, but it hopes to spot opportunities to make political, economic, and military inroads with key regional states, as it has done in Syria. For example, Russia eyes opportunities to expand its influence in Mediterranean countries like Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Libya, and Turkey.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF RUSSIA’S ACTIVITY IN THE BLACK SEA?
In 1783, Catherine the Great fulfilled Russia’s historical quest for a warm water port by annexing Crimea for the first time. Warm water ports were valuable to Russia in that they are navigable year-round, unlike many ports in northern Russia. Ever since then, Russia has been an important power in the region, often going head-to-head with the Ottoman Empire and then with Turkey over access to the sea.
Other European powers, namely France and the UK, were also active in the Black Sea, particularly during the Crimean wars of the mid-nineteenth century. But during the Cold War, Moscow became the dominant power in the region. It controlled the northern and eastern shores of the sea, with docile socialist Romania and Bulgaria—then members of the Eastern bloc—to the west. Only NATO member Turkey served as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union in the Black Sea, which was occasionally referred to at the time as a “Soviet lake.”
Ukraine has launched missile strikes against three Russian gas rigs in the Black Sea. Seven people were missing and three injured after one of the attacks, according to a Telegram post from Sergey Aksyonov, the governor of Russian-controlled Crimea.
A Ukrainian official confirmed one of the attacks, claiming on Tuesday that Russian troops were using the platform as a military installation, The Moscow Times reported.
"On those towers, Russia had organized small garrisons and stored equipment for air defense, radar warfare, and reconnaissance," Sergiy Bratchuk of Odesa's regional military administration told an online briefing, according to Deutsche Welle.
"They were being turned into fortification points that were helping the Russians achieve full control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea," he said in remarks quoted by Interfax Ukraine. The three gas drilling platforms targeted by Ukraine, known as the Boyko towers, are owned by Crimean oil and gas company Chernomorneftegaz, which was seized by Russian-backed officials during its annexation of the peninsula in 2014, per Reuters.Chernomorneftegaz has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union since 2014.Military expert Oleg Zhdanov said that the towers were like the "ears and eyes of the Russian Black Sea Fleet," according to Offshore Energy.
The strikes expose Russia's vulnerabilities in the Black Sea after a series of successful attacks from Ukraine, including destroying a Russian tugboat near Snake Island and the sinking of the Moskva warship.Russian forces had placed radio-jamming equipment at the gas rig, blocking Ukraine from getting a complete picture of the area, Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, told the New York Times.
He added that the Ukrainian strikes could indicate that Ukraine has received naval weapons from Western allies.Russian authorities said that the attack had caused a major fire, which appeared to be still raging two days later, as seen on a NASA satellite that monitors forest fires.In apparent retaliation, Russia struck parts of Odesa with missiles, according to The Telegraph. Ukraine said that a food warehouse was destroyed, but no civilians were killed.
The intensified conflict in the Black Sea comes amid Russia's ongoing naval blockade, which has disrupted global wheat exports and had wide-ranging knock-on effects on the world's food supply.
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