Black Sea: Russia and NATO tussle for control
There’s a new front in Russia’s propaganda war with the West, said Keir Giles in Independent.co.uk. A British warship, the HMS Defender, was sailing across the Black Sea from Ukraine to Georgia last week when it passed near the Crimean Peninsula—internationally recognized as part of Ukraine but annexed by Russia in 2014. The Kremlin claims that the Royal Navy destroyer entered Russian territorial waters, and that it changed course only after a Russian patrol ship fired warning shots and an attack jet dropped bombs near the British vessel. It’s a typical story spun by Moscow for a domestic audience: that Russia “is under threat from a dangerous, aggressive West” yet is also strong enough to “see off unwelcome intruders.” The U.K. denied the incident ever happened, saying blandly that the Defender was in international waters and that its crew heard a Russian military exercise in the distance. That doesn’t appear to be quite true: a BBC journalist on board the Defender said that some 20 Russian planes buzzed overhead and that two Russian coast guard boats came within 300 feet. The warship, of course, was expecting that harassment, because the entire point of sailing by Crimea was to demonstrate to Moscow that the West does not accept its annexation and does not recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea’s waters.
Russia views the Black Sea as its private backyard, said Carmen Valica in Romania.EuropaLibera.org, even though five other countries border the sea, including NATO members Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. It’s no accident that Russia tried to bully the Defender on the eve of the U.S.-led Sea Breeze 2021 Exercise.
The annual maritime drill in the
Black Sea involves NATO members and partner nations such as Ukraine, and it has always irritated Moscow. This week’s exercise is the largest since the first Sea Breeze was held in 1997—32 countries and 5,000 personnel are taking part—and Russia calls it “patently aggressive.” There’s a lot of history here, said Dmitry Trenin in The Moscow Times (Russia). Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been based at the Crimean city of Sevastopol since the late 18th century, and the Kremlin is fiercely protective of this warm-water port because much of Russia’s coastline is icebound for months every year. To this day, most Crimeans are ethnic Russians, not Ukrainians. Look, “no one in Moscow expects the West to accept Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea in the foreseeable future.” But it is a reality, and it’s unwise for Britain and other Western nations to constantly test Russia’s “red lines.”
The British weren’t the only ones being provocative, said Konstantin Eggert in DeutscheWelle.de (Germany). Russian President Vladimir Putin knows his decrepit navy can’t realistically challenge the West. But he is afraid to appear weak and “prefers to play madman—even if that means risking lethal consequences.” Both sides are flirting with danger, said Nikolas Busse in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany). But in the end, the principle of freedom of navigation must be defended. NATO has “every right” to patrol a sea bordered by its members, and it must defend the sovereignty of Ukraine, which hopes to become a member. Putin is now on notice that the Black Sea “is not Russia’s bathtub.”