... Romania initiated a proposal to create a permanent NATO naval task force in the Black Sea and Bucharest intends to discuss its project during the summit of the Alliance in Warsaw in July. It is noticeably the first concrete 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 ABM facilities currently under ...
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 night of February 21-22, brought to power a ruling elite backed by the Euro-Atlantic community, as well as leaders displaying hostile views with regard to Russia. The proposition made on February 23 by the new authorities to abolish the law...
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 peninsula is likely to tremendously sustain Russia’s maritime power in the region and beyond, in the Mediterranean[1]. However, the lack of local maintenance infrastructures as well as limited shipbuilding capacities remain a structural challenge to the revival of Moscow’s maritime and naval might in the Black Sea region...
