What power issues around the Battle of the Black Sea?

The Black Sea alone concentrates all the resources of the war in Ukraine: military bases, commercial ports and immense gas resources. Isolated during the Soviet era, this inland sea opened up to Westerners at the end of the Cold War. By seizing Crimea in 2014, Vladimir Putin regained control of the port of Sevastopol, which had become the rear base of his military ships. Odessa (Ukraine) and Mariupol (Ukraine) are now in the sights of Moscow (Russia), which wishes to take over the North coast.

In the South, NATO is present in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, but the powers have abandoned the area, leaving the field open to Russia. “France was the last NATO country to patrol the Black Sea, in January”, specifies Nicolas Gosset, researcher at the Royal Institute of Defense in Brussels (Belgium). The Black Sea has large gas reserves, which are shared by the different countries. Russia, after seizing Serpents’ Island, complicates access to certain deposits. By controlling Ukrainian waters, Vladimir Putin will block an extraction project intended to supply gas to Europeans.