Away from the grueling land battles and devastating airstrikes, the Ukraine struggle has from its outset had a naval aspect. Quickly after the February 2022 invasion, Russia imposed a de facto naval blockade on Ukraine, solely to see its fleet stunningly defeated throughout a contest for management of the Black Sea.
However that struggle on the waves seems to be prefer it might be ending.
Below the phrases of a deal introduced on March 25, 2025, by the U.S. and agreed upon in Saudi Arabia, either side of the battle dedicated to making sure “safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” in accordance with a White Home assertion.
The naval side of the Ukraine struggle has gotten much less consideration than occasions on land and within the skies. However it’s, I consider, an important side with probably far-reaching penalties.
Not solely have Russia’s Black Sea losses constrained Moscow’s potential to mission energy throughout the globe by way of naval means, it has additionally resulted in Russia’s rising cooperation with China, the place Moscow is rising as a junior celebration to Beijing on the excessive seas.
Battle over the Black Sea
The custom of geopolitical idea has tended to color an oversimplification of world politics. Theories harkening again to the late nineteenth century categorized nations as both land powers or maritime powers.
Thinkers such because the British geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder or the U.S. theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan characterised maritime powers as nations that possessed traits of democratic liberalism and free commerce. In distinction, land powers had been usually portrayed as despotic and militaristic.
Whereas such generalizations have traditionally been used to demonize enemies, there’s nonetheless a contrived tendency to divide the world into land and sea powers. An accompanying view that naval and armed forces warfare is considerably separate has continued.
And this division offers us a misunderstanding of Russia’s progress within the struggle with Ukraine. Whereas Moscow has actually seen some successes on land and within the air, that ought to not draw consideration away from Russia’s beautiful defeat within the Black Sea that has seen Russia should retreat from the Ukrainian shoreline and maintain its ships far-off from the battlefront.
As I describe in my current guide, “Near and Far Waters: The Geopolitics of Seapower,” maritime nations have two considerations: They need to try to regulate the elements of the ocean comparatively near their coastlines, or their “near waters”; in the meantime, these with the power and want to take action attempt to mission energy and affect into “far waters” throughout oceans, that are the close to waters of different nations.
The Black Sea is a tightly enclosed and comparatively small sea comprising the close to waters of the nations that encompass it: Turkey to the south, Bulgaria and Romania to the west, Georgia to the east, and Ukraine and Russia to the north.
Management of the Black Sea’s close to waters has been contested all through the centuries and has performed a job within the present Russian-Ukraine struggle.
Russia’s seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 allowed it to regulate the naval port of Sevastopol. What had been close to waters of Ukraine grew to become de facto close to waters for Russia.
Controlling these close to waters allowed Russia to disrupt Ukraine’s commerce, particularly the export of grain to African far waters.
However Russia’s actions had been thwarted by way of the collaboration of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey to permit passage of cargo ships by way of their close to waters, then by way of the Bosporus into the Mediterranean Sea.
Ukraine’s use of those different nations’ close to waters allowed it to export between 5.2 million and 5.8 million tons of grain monthly within the first quarter of 2024. To make sure, this was a decline from Ukraine’s exports of about 6.5 million tons monthly previous to the struggle, which then dropped to simply 2 million tons in the summertime of 2023 due to Russian assaults and threats. Previous to the announcement of the ceasefire, the International Agricultural Service of the U.S. Division of Agriculture had forecasted a decline in Ukrainian grain exports for 2025.
However efforts to constrain Russia’s management of Ukraine’s close to waters within the Black Sea, and Russia’s unwillingness to face the results of attacking ships in NATO nations’ close to waters, meant Ukraine was nonetheless capable of entry far waters for financial achieve and maintain the Ukrainian economic system afloat.
For Putin, that sinking feeling
Alongside being thwarted in its potential to disrupt Ukrainian exports, Russia has additionally come beneath direct naval assault from Ukraine. Since February 2022, utilizing unmanned assault drones, Ukraine has efficiently sunk or broken Russian ships and whittled away at Russia’s Black sea fleet, sinking about 15 of its prewar fleet of about 36 warships and damaging many others.
Russia has been pressured to restrict its use of Sevastopol and station its ships within the japanese a part of the Black Sea. It can not successfully operate within the close to waters it gained by way of the seizure of Crimea.
Russia’s naval setbacks towards Ukraine are solely the newest in its historic difficulties in projecting sea energy and its ensuing tendency to primarily give attention to the protection of close to waters.
In 1905, Russia was shocked by a dramatic naval loss to Japan. But even in instances the place it was not outright defeated, Russian sea energy has been frequently constrained traditionally. In World Battle I, Russia cooperated with the British Royal Navy to restrict German service provider exercise within the Baltic Sea and Turkish commerce and navy attain within the Black Sea.
In World Battle II, Russia relied on materials assist from the Allies and was largely blockaded inside its Baltic Sea and Black Sea ports. Many ships had been introduced near house or stripped of their weapons as artillery or offshore assist for the territorial battle with Germany.
Through the Chilly Battle, in the meantime, although the Soviet Union constructed fast-moving missile boats and a few plane carriers, its attain into far waters relied on submarines. The principle objective of the Soviet Mediterranean fleet was to stop NATO penetration into the Black Sea.
And now, Russia has misplaced management of the Black Sea. It can not function in these as soon as safe close to waters. These losses scale back its potential to mission naval energy from the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean Sea.
Ceding captaincy to China
Confronted with a obtrusive loss in its yard and put in a weak place in its close to waters, Russia because of this can mission energy to far waters solely by way of cooperation with a China that’s itself investing closely in a far-water naval capability.
Joint naval workouts within the South China Sea in July 2024 are proof of this cooperation. Wang Guangzheng of the Chinese language Folks’s Liberation Military Navy’s Southern Theater stated of the drill that “the China-Russia joint patrol has promoted the deepening and practical cooperation between the two in multiple directions and fields.” And searching ahead, he claimed the train “effectively enhanced the ability to the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats.”
Warships of the Chinese language and Russian navies participate in a joint naval train within the East China Sea.
Li Yun/Xinhua by way of Getty Pictures
This cooperation is smart in purely navy phrases for Russia, a mutually helpful mission of sea energy projection. However it’s largely to China’s profit.
Russia will help China’s protection of its northern close to waters and safe entry to far waters by way of the Arctic Ocean – an more and more vital area as world local weather change reduces the hindrance posed by sea ice. However Russia stays very a lot the junior accomplice.
Moscow’s strategic pursuits will likely be supported provided that they match Chinese language pursuits. Extra to the purpose, sea energy is about energy projection for financial achieve. China will probably use Russia to assist shield its ongoing financial attain into African, Pacific, European and South American far waters. However it’s unlikely to jeopardize these pursuits for Russian targets.
To make sure, Russia has far-water financial pursuits, particularly within the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa. And securing Russian pursuits in Africa enhances China’s rising naval presence within the Indian Ocean to safe its personal, and higher, world financial pursuits. However cooperation will nonetheless be at China’s behest.
For a lot of the Ukraine struggle, Russia has been bottled up in its Black Sea close to waters, with the one avenue for projecting its naval energy coming by way of entry to Africa and Indian Ocean far waters – and solely then as a junior accomplice with China, which dictates the phrases and circumstances.
A maritime take care of Ukraine now, even when it holds, is not going to compensate for Russia’s ongoing incapability to mission energy throughout the oceans by itself.
Editor’s word: That is an up to date model of an article initially revealed by The Dialog U.S. on Oct. 3, 2024.
