The “moment” seems confused. As it stands, the toing and froing between American, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiators has produced nothing more than a ceasefire proposal, supposedly to produce the conditions for peace in the near future. Meanwhile, the political and military leaders of the NATO nations are meeting in the absence of the United States: the hegemon of the West seems to have abdicated. In this volatile world, it is important to point out a few geopolitical parameters. In addition to respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the need for genuine security guarantees, freedom of navigation in the Black Sea is essential. However, Russia’s claims suggest the worst.
What we now call the Black Sea, the ancient Greeks called the Euxine Bridge, meaning “hospitable sea” (a euphemism). Today, in this maritime theater of the Ukrainian war, the perils are military, strategic, and geopolitical1. Neglected by strategists after the Cold War, the Black Sea was once presented as the maritime axis of a future Eurasian geo-economic region, linked to the large European market. Unfortunately, the Black Sea quickly became a confrontation zone once again, with Russia’s military intervention in Georgia (the Five-Day War, August 2008). Launched more than three years ago, Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine highlighted the strategic and geopolitical stakes of the Black Sea, which must not become a “Russian lake.” But Vladimir Putin and his cohorts have given up on nothing: conquering part of Ukraine and turning what remains into satellites would have to be accompanied by the takeover of the Black Sea.
The ancient project of a “Russian lake” in the Black Sea
Russian hegemonic ambitions can be traced back to the end of the 18th Century, when the “Eastern Question” was looming large, i.e. the power rivalries sparked by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. After the conquest of Crimea and the northern shores of the Black Sea (1774), followed by the foundation of Sevastopol (1783), the Tsars wanted to open up the “road to Constantinople” and, on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, create a great Orthodox empire straddling the Straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles). The Russian defeat at the end of
the Crimean War (1853-1856) only served to suspend this project, as evidenced by the “warm seas strategy” and Russian geopolitical objectives during the First World War. In a way, it survived the Bolshevik revolution, as support for Mustafa Kemal was primarily aimed at keeping the British and French out of the Straits. At the end of the Second World War, the USSR was unable to satellite Turkey, which turned to the United States and soon to NATO, but it was now the dominant power in the Black Sea and was striving to project its power into the Eastern Mediterranean; Moscow’s pan-Arab policy in the Middle East comes to mind.
However, the final break-up of the USSR on December 25 1991 turned the regional geopolitical situation on its head. Having lost control of Bulgaria and Romania, the independence of Ukraine and Georgia further reduced post-Soviet Russia’s means of action and influence in the Black Sea. It has barely 400 kilometers of coastline and retains only four of the twenty-six Soviet ports in the region.
In parallel with its “Russia first” policy, the United States is promoting a strategy to open up the Caspian basin, based on full access to the Black Sea and the South Caucasus. As for the European Union and its member states, they support the project for a Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization2 (BSEC), promoted by Ankara, and have launched the “Black Sea Synergy” initiative (2007). There is talk of the formation of a vast “Black Sea-Caucasus-Caspian” region.
In fact, Russia’s eclipse in the Black Sea was short-lived, with Moscow manipulating the region’s so-called “frozen conflicts3” to retain levers of power and counter Western objectives in the Caucasus, the Caspian Basin and Central Asia, despite concrete cooperation during the Western military intervention in Afghanistan in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Five-Day War (August 8-12, 2008) against Georgia marked a turning point. Russia took control of Abkhazia, a breakaway Georgian province, and its borders, giving it an additional 200 kilometers of Black Sea coastline.
In February 2014, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the manu militari annexation of Crimea gave it control of both shores of the Kerch Strait (the ancient Cimmerian Bosphorus), and thus of the Sea of Azov. Russia now has an additional 1,000 kilometers of coastline. Remilitarized, Crimea is transformed into a “strategic southern bastion”. In addition to defending Russia’s southern borders, the idea was to secure strategic control of the Black Sea and turn the Ukrainian peninsula into a bridgehead to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The following year, Russia’s military intervention in Syria brought the project to fruition, with the revitalization of the Tartus naval base, halfway between the Bosphorus and the Suez Canal.
A struggle for supremacy in the Black Sea
When the “special military operation” was launched on February 24, 2022, Crimea was used as a rear base. As part of the wider project to dismantle and satellite Ukraine, one of the strategic objectives was to build a “land bridge” from Donbas to the Odesa region, and thus conquer southern Ukraine and its coastline, which the Kremlin describes as the “New Russia” (as in the days of Catherine II). In short, to cancel out the territorial and maritime consequences of the break-up of the USSR, and establish Russia as the dominant power in the Black Sea basin. Beyond this lies Moldavia, within which Moscow maintains the Transnistrian pseudo-state. At the time, the balance of naval power was very much in Russia’s favor, as Ukraine had no war fleet of its own. Its few vessels had been destroyed or seized in 2014 in the ports of Crimea.
As a result, the Russian Black Sea fleet seems to be in a position to impose a naval blockade, thus interrupting the flow of trade from Ukraine, and to conduct an amphibious operation in the Odesa region. Ukrainian ports on the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea coast, and the Danube, particularly grain terminals in the Danube delta, are being bombed. Threatened with losing all access to the Black Sea, and by extension to the Mediterranean and the “World Ocean” (the world’s seas and oceans), Ukraine is virtually reduced to a rump state, geostrategically landlocked and deprived of the oxygen of the open sea. At the start of this new phase of a war begun eight years earlier, Russian domination of most of the Black Sea seemed inescapable; an amphibious assault on the main Ukrainian port of Odesa, loudly claimed by proponents of Great Russian chauvinism, was anticipated4.
The fate of the weapons, with the early elimination by the Ukrainians of the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea5, and of several amphibious vessels, thwarted the Russian objective of a blockade, and even more so that of an invasion by sea of Ukrainian territory. All the more so as, from February 28, 2024, Turkey closed the Straits to the passage of warships not attached to a Black Sea port, thus preventing Russia from reinforcing its fleet with units deployed in the Mediterranean or dispatched from the Baltic Sea or Murmansk (the headquarters of the Northern Fleet6). Moreover, the effects of the war on grain prices threatened Russia’s diplomatic presence in Africa and the “Global South” for a time, leading Moscow to sign an agreement on corridors for the movement of grain vessels (July 23, 2022): the Black Sea thus remained partially open to merchant shipping.
In July 2023, Moscow did not renew the Green Deal, but its fleet was no longer able to threaten the merchant ships that linked Ukrainian ports to the Bosphorus; 53 million tons of grain and raw materials were exported in the following year. A combination of missile strikes (Neptune anti-ship missiles and Franco-British cruise missiles) and Ukrainian drone attacks – even hitting Sevastopol, other Crimean bases, and the port of Berdiansk – destroyed or damaged a number of Russian warships; the Russians were driven out of Snake Island, and the Black Sea fleet retreated to the ports of the Sea of Azov and the Russian-Caucasian coast (Novorossiisk), including the coast of Abkhazia (Ochamchira). According to Ukrainian intelligence, thirteen Russian ships have been destroyed and around twenty others damaged. In short, half of Russia’s Black Sea fleet is out of action. From a naval point of view, it is no exaggeration to speak of victory, although this should not obscure the fact that Ukraine now controls barely one-fifth of its coastline7.
The Turkish “game”
At the same time, high tensions and incidents in Black Sea airspace, between Russian aircraft and those of NATO member nations, illustrate that the region is becoming a theater of confrontation between Russia and NATO. However, it must be borne in mind that NATO is not a global geostrategic player that thinks and acts as one. Turkey is a case in point. As a major coastal power, Turkey was tempted after the Cold War to set up a Russian-Turkish condominium in the Black Sea8. As a result, it has regularly refused to strengthen NATO’s naval presence, particularly in the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. In particular, Turkey opposed the extension to the Black Sea of Operation Active Endeavour (2001-2016), conducted under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (April 4, 1949). In short, it saw the Black Sea as a zone for the expansion of its own interests.
Of course, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is not without its worries for Turkey, and sympathy for the Crimean Tatars’ cause does not explain everything. Ankara refuses to allow the Black Sea region to become Russia’s preserve, especially as the question of gas deposits is added to the issues of sovereignty, power and traffic. However, despite some hesitation linked to the war in Syria, following a serious Turkish-Russian incident – a Russian plane shot down by Turkish fighters on November 24, 2015 – Turkey is opposed to the Romanian proposal to set up a NATO fleet in the Black Sea. While Turkey provides real political, diplomatic, and military-industrial support to Ukraine, to which it is linked by a “defense partnership9”, this refusal is reiterated after February 24, 2022, at odds with the expectations of Romania and Bulgaria (the latter is less alluring).
The truth is that Turkey intends to retain its room for maneuver in the region and, in line with the “Blue Homeland” doctrine10, is positioning itself as a naval and maritime power, at the intersection of the “greater Mediterranean” and the Caspian basin (Turkey has two gas fields in the Black Sea). This implies an active policy in the Black Sea, following the example of cooperation with Bulgaria and Romania (signing of an agreement to combat floating mines, January 11, 2024). Nine days before signing this cooperation agreement, Turkey had refused passage through the Straits to two minesweepers sold by the UK to Romania11. Theoretically, it remains possible for naval units from other NATO countries to transit through the Rhine-Main-Danube link, thus circumventing the Turkish ban, but with heavy tonnage constraints. This possibility does not alter the strategic calculations of the players in the region.
In short, the passage through the Straits is a prerequisite for strengthening Russia’s Black Sea fleet, and for the rise of NATO as such in this pivotal area. And the Montreux Convention gives Ankara real geostrategic leverage, a fact of which the Turkish leadership is fully aware. They are therefore wavering between Russia and their Western allies. Some will cry “genius” and say that the “Global South” has reinvented the world. In view of a possible escalation of the new Cold War between Russia and the “global West,” it would be doubtful if the Black Sea countries that are members of NATO could do without inter-allied solidarity, even outside this framework (closer coalitions are possible). Indeed, Donald Trump’s complacency toward Vladimir Putin and the possibility of a botched peace, which would pave the way for further Russian expansion in Ukraine and a breakdown in the balance of power in the Black Sea, would change the geopolitical situation.
To conclude
In such a scenario, Turkey would see its dream of supremacy in the Black Sea dissipate, to the point of seeing the Russian threat come dangerously close to its maritime borders. Turkish diplomacy is therefore particularly eager to reiterate its principled position on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea. Likewise, Ankara is ready to contribute to a “European reassurance force,” which would provide the security guarantees on the ground required for a peace that is, if not just, at least solid.
In short, Turkey would be the southeastern pillar of a “geopolitical Europe,” from the Arctic to the eastern Mediterranean, including the Black Sea. Far from the outdated schemes of the 1990s and 2000s for enlarging the European Union, due to the country’s domestic political leanings, this geopolitical convergence provides the basis for enhanced Euro-Turkish cooperation, on the economic and commercial (the reform of the Brussels-Ankara Customs Union), strategic and military-industrial levels. It is important to pay attention.
Addendum
A historical perspective on Crimea, Turkey and Russia
Crimea is a Black Sea peninsula under Ukrainian sovereignty, despite Russia’s invasion in February 2014. Covering an area of 26,000 square kilometers, the peninsula has a population of around two million, 58% of whom are Russian-speaking. This predominance of the Russian-speaking element is even more pronounced in the port city of Sevastopol (80% of the 400,000 inhabitants). This ethno-linguistic fact goes back a long way. In 1774, Catherine II conquered southern Ukraine and defeated the Crimean Tatars, whose khanate was under Ottoman allegiance. The Russian Empire thus opened up an outlet to the Black Sea, and the naval
base at Sevastopol, home port of the Eskadra, was built (1783). The Tsars then set their sights on controlling the Turkish straits, the gateway to the Mediterranean, and even conquering Constantinople (Istanbul). They legitimized this “warm seas” strategy by invoking the memory of the Eastern Roman Empire, of which they were the heirs (see the “Third Rome” theme). Thus, the Russian Empire disputed France’s role as protector of Eastern Christians; the dispute was one of the dramaturgical lines leading to the Crimean War (1853-1856).
At the time of the Bolshevik coup and the ensuing civil war (1917-1921), the Crimea was disputed between Whites and Reds, with the latter prevailing. As part of the USSR, the Crimean peninsula was for a time part of the Russian Federal Republic. Under Stalin, during the Second World War, Crimean Tatars, collectively accused of collaboration with the German enemy, were deported en masse to Central Asia. Russification and Sovietization of the peninsula were further aggravated. In 1954, Khrushchev commemorated the tercentenary of the integration of part of present-day Ukraine into the Russian Empire by attaching the Crimean peninsula, and thus the naval base at Sevastopol, to the Federative Republic of Ukraine. As the internal boundaries of the USSR have only administrative value, the decision has no immediate geopolitical significance.
But when the USSR broke up in 1991, administrative boundaries became international borders. On the one hand, the Russian government claimed to be the protector of Russian-speaking minorities; on the other, it intended to maintain a military presence at the Sevastopol naval base. However, the Budapest Memorandum (1994) on the denuclearization of Ukraine, which guarantees the country’s borders, commits Russia under international law. Signed three years later, in 1997, the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Moscow and Kiev temporarily resolved the latent conflict over Crimea and Sevastopol. The base was leased to Moscow for twenty years, with Moscow retaining its foothold in the Black Sea.
The “Orange Revolution” and the election of Viktor Yushchenko to the Ukrainian presidency in December 2004 soon reignited the conflict, with Vladimir Putin opposing Ukraine’s geopolitical turn toward NATO and the European Union. In fact, he believed that Ukraine had to inevitably return to Russia. The Kremlin was instrumentalizing pro-Russian separatist organizations in Crimea, and various Russian political figures were talking about the peninsula’s return to Russia. In return, the Ukrainian president announced that the lease on the Sevastopol base, which expired in 2017, would not be renewed. During the Russian-Georgian war of August 2008, Russian naval units based in Sevastopol went into action, prompting diplomatic protests from Kiev. In February 2010, the election to the Ukrainian presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, reputed to be pro-Russian, changed the situation. As well as lifting Ukraine’s NATO bid, a new agreement between Kiev and Moscow extended the lease on Sevastopol until 2042. Tensions over Crimea eased for a while, but the geopolitical issue remained unresolved.
In the summer of 2013, Russia launched an economic war to dissuade Ukraine from signing an association agreement with the European Union; the Kremlin wanted to force it to sign the Eurasian Union treaty. Developments in this geopolitical conflict in late 2013/early 2014 led to a civic uprising (“Euromaidan”) and the flight of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russian president from the Party of the Regions. Vladimir Putin responded by organizing the secession of Crimea and, two days after a referendum, its annexation by Russia (March 18, 2014). The annexation is illegal under international law. As such, Western powers put in place a number of sanctions against the personalities and entities involved in the manu militari attachment of Crimea to Russia. After spreading to Donbas, the conflict reached the Sea of Azov (2018).
Like the vast majority of states on the surface of the globe, Turkey has not recognized this illegal annexation, despite its rapprochement with Russia since 2016 (a conflict-cooperation relationship compared to a “brutal agreement”). In addition to refusing to accept such a policy of fait accompli, Turkey is taking into account the plight of the Crimean Tatars, a cause that many Turks sympathize with out of ethnic and religious solidarity (Turkey has a Tatar minority). Finally, Turkey is forging a military-industrial partnership with Ukraine (including the delivery of drones), aimed at readjusting the balance of power in the Black Sea basin, and providing leverage in Turkish-Russian negotiations in other theaters and crisis zones (Syria, Libya, South Caucasus).
Of course, the “special military operation” of February 24, 2022 and the transformation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict into a major, high-intensity interstate war did not put an end to the ambiguity of Turkish policy. The condemnation of this large-scale Russian invasion, the reaffirmation of principled support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, and the delivery of drones to its army have not, on the contrary, prevented Turkish-Russian trade and smuggling from flourishing.
In the course of the war, the Ukrainian army managed to strike the Russian army even on Crimean soil, forcing the Black Sea fleet to take refuge in the ports of the Sea of Azov and those along the Russian-Caucasian coast, as far as the secessionist province of Abkhazia (Georgia). In short, Crimea has not enabled Russia to impose its naval supremacy on the Black Sea. Contrary to the image complacently conveyed by pro-Russians, it has to be admitted that Ukraine, undefeated on land, has prevailed at sea (as well as in the air and in cyberspace).
Nevertheless, the prospect of an infamous peace, possibly imposed on Ukraine by its abandonment, is worrying even Turkey. Russia’s retention of Crimea and part of the territories conquered in the spring of 2022, including a “land bridge” from the Sea of Azov to Crimea, would threaten the Odesa region and the western Black Sea. Firmly controlled by Moscow, the Ukrainian peninsula would finally give Russia the means to reverse the balance of power in the Black Sea basin, even more so if Ukraine were definitively amputated territorially, “demilitarized” (a reaffirmed Russian demand) and reduced to a satellite state (its “denazification”, in Putin’s vocabulary).
Associate professor of history and geography and researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics (University of Paris VIII). Author of several books, he works within the Thomas More Institute on geopolitical and defense issues in Europe. His research areas cover the Baltic-Black Sea region, post-Soviet Eurasia, and the Mediterranean.
Footnotes
- The Black Sea covers an area of around 420,000 square kilometers. Connected to the Mediterranean by the Turkish straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles), it forms the Pontico-Mediterranean Basin with the eastern part of the Mediterranean. The “Eurasian gateway” is an interface between Europe, the depths of Eurasia, and Western Asia (Anatolia, Near and Middle East). For the countries on its shores, the Black Sea provides access to the “greater Mediterranean” and, via the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, to the “World Ocean.”
- Founded in 1992, the BSEC is a regional international organization focused on multilateral initiatives to promote cooperation and stability among its thirteen member states in the Black Sea region. Listed in alphabetical order, its member states are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
- Transnistria in Moldavia; Abkhazia, South Ossetia and, for a time, Adjaria in Georgia; Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
- In the current geopolitical configuration, Odesa and the economic activities that revolve around the port account for around 30% of Ukraine’s GDP.
- In April 2022, the Ukrainians sank the cruiser Moskva, flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, which was cruising some 100 km from Odesa.
- The Five Seas system could enable Russia to reinforce its Black Sea fleet from the Caspian. This is a river-sea and canal network linking the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea via the Sea of Azov. It is based on the Volga River. However, draught is limited to 3.5 meters.
- In the event of a peace agreement, we will need to think about how to secure the Ukrainian coast and the Odesa-Bosphorus traffic corridor in the long term, as well as ensuring free navigation in the Black Sea.
- See the role played by Turkish-Russian cooperation in the establishment of the BLACKSEAFOR (Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group) in 2001
- See “Turkey and Ukraine: The Ins and Outs of Their Defense Partnership”, Desk-Russie, December 10, 2021.
- The “Blue Homeland” doctrine (‘Mavri Vatan’ in Turkish) is promoted by some Turkish military circles with a reputation for being “Eurasian” and hostile to the West. It promotes the idea of maritime claims and power projection in the Aegean Sea, and more broadly in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey’s neighbors have identified gas deposits, as well as in the Black Sea. The overall direction would be to project Turkey’s strength and power into the post-Ottoman space.
- This under Article 19 of the Montreux Convention (July 20, 1936): “In time of war, Turkey not being a belligerent, vessels of war shall enjoy complete freedom of passage and navigation in the Straits under conditions identical to those stipulated in articles 10 to 18. However, it shall be forbidden for vessels of war of any belligerent Power to pass through the Straits, except in cases coming within the application of Article 25 of the present Convention, as well as in the case of assistance given to a state victim of aggression by virtue of a treaty of mutual assistance involving Turkey, concluded within the framework of the Covenant of the League of Nations, registered and published in accordance with the provisions of Article 18 of the said Covenant. (…) Notwithstanding the prohibition of passage laid down in paragraph 2 above, warships of the belligerent Powers bordering or not bordering the Black Sea, separated from their home ports, are authorized to join these ports.” Some experts in the region believe that another reading of the Montreux Convention could be made, authorizing the opening of the straits to ships coming to support Ukraine. Vladimir Socor developed this point of view in the Jamestown Foundation letter.
