July 14, 2024: Russian president Vladimir Putin believed that Russia must dominate the Black Sea and enable Russian warships and commercial transports to exit the Black Sea and enter the Mediterranean Sea, to demonstrate Russian naval power and increase maritime trade with foreign nations. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Before that Russia fought a brief war with Georgia in the Caucasus and gained control of most of Georgia’s Black Sea coast. These moves were apparently prompted by the 2013 Russian formation of a Mediterranean Squadron from ships of the Black Sea fleet. In 2015 Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war on the side of the pro-Russian Assad government. This enabled Russia to build its Hmeimim Air Base in Syria’s Latakia province near the Mediterranean coast. Russia also improved the nearby Tartus naval base it leased from Syria. This serves as a base for ships of the Russian Mediterranean Squadron. In North Africa Russia took control of the Al Jufra Air Base in Libya. This was to serve as a military base for further Russian activities in Africa.

All this came to nothing as Russia lost control of the Black Sea after it invaded Ukraine in 2022. Ukraine used USVs (Unmanned Seagoing Vessels) armed with explosives to destroy or damage over a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet warships. The surviving Russian ships fled to distant areas of the Black Sea to escape these novel but very effective Ukrainian attacks. Even in the new, more distant bases, Black Sea Fleet ships were still attacked by new, longer range Ukrainian attack USVs. This was humiliating for Russia, which lost control of the Black Sea to Ukraine, a country without a fleet. The Ukrainians continue to use their USVs against surviving Russian warships and now commercial ones. Ukrainian USVs now block Russian tankers and commercial vessels from leaving or entering the Black Sea.

This change means Russia no longer has much naval power in the Mediterranean and dares not try to send any ships back into the Black Sea, mainly because Turkey invoked clauses of the 1936 Montreux Convention that enables Turkey to halt warship access to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean via the narrow Turkish Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Turkey invoked the Montreux Convention after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

The Ukrainian USVs are waiting for such a move and the Russians have not been able to develop methods to deal with the USVs. Without access to the Mediterranean, Russia no longer has any influence over numerous Middle Eastern situations where past Russian support for one side or another was decisive.

Russia must now rely only on its Baltic Sea ports for commercial shipments. This increases ground transport costs for Russian exports of grain and oil, and imports to southern Russia. Nearby Russian Northern Fleet bases can send warships to the Mediterranean but those ships cannot enter the Black Sea. Even if they could, the Ukrainian USVs would sink them before they could reach Russian bases over a thousand kilometers east where the surviving Black Sea fleet ships have taken refuge.

This Russian naval defeat in the Black Sea has eliminated, for the duration of the Ukraine War, the Russian ability to exert any influence in Middle Eastern conflicts, particularly the one between Iran and Hamas against tiny but mighty Israel. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, they never expected to lose control of the Black sea along with over a third of the Black Sea Fleet warships. This is an unexpected nightmare for Russia and there appears to be no easy way Russia can reverse the situation. Worse, NATO countries are discussing how to make the reduced capabilities of the Black Sea Fleet permanent and banish or greatly reduce any future Russian naval power in the Black Sea or Mediterranean. Ukraine’s blockade of Russia’s Black Sea ports with USV’s will also give it considerable leverage when peace negotiations begin.