... Romanian initiative in terms of maritime security in the Black Sea, a naval theater which has been depicted extensively as a Russian-Turkish security condominium since 1991. Romania is a key NATO member in the region, hosting on its soil most of the US ... ... offset Russia’s military footprint in the Black Sea region, which has dramatically increased following the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing fortification of the peninsula[2]. The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been slated for modernization since late 2000s, with the induction of new surface and submarine platforms,...
The Ukrainian crisis gave to Moscow a unique opportunity to annex Crimea, the independence of which had never been fully accepted by Russia after 1991. The regime change occurred in Kiev in February 2014, after Viktor Yanukovich’s running away during the ... ... Kherson (as naval shipyards) on the one hand, and those of Sevastopol (as the main maintenance port and the headquarter of the Black Sea Fleet) on the other hand. Novorossiysk being an exception, none of Black Sea Russian ports can host several vessels ...
Russia’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea has overthrown the maritime context in the Black Sea region. The full sovereignty recovered by Moscow over the Crimean ... ... largely second and third importance ports with limited infrastructures and poor production capacities. Consequently, since 1991, Black Sea Fleet vessels’ maintenance has been performed by Baltic shipyards (either in Kaliningrad or in Saint Petersburg),...
Part Two:
What are the consequences for the buildup of the Black Sea Fleet?
Having examined the plans for the economic development of Crimea and the construction of infrastructures in the peninsula in our previous paper, we now raise issues related to the impact of Russia’s seizure of Crimea for the modernization of the Black Sea Fleet. The buildup of the Black Sea Fleet ‘1.0’ was initiated years before Russia’s takeover of Crimea which has recast Moscow’s paradigm in the whole Black ...