On Wednesday May 25, a senior Russian diplomat, quoted by the press agencies of his country, assured that “the resolution of the food problem requires a coordinated approach, involving in particular the lifting of the sanctions which have been introduced against Russian exports and financial transactions”. The war in ukraine fact raises fears of a global food crisis, particularly in cereals. The attacked country, the world’s fourth largest exporter of corn and wheat, saw its production disrupted by the Russian invasion.
The export of cereals already harvested is prevented by Russia, which blocks the Ukrainian ports, in particular that of Odessa, open to the Black Sea. This is of strategic interest to the Kremlin: if it managed to annex the Ukrainian coast, it would control the entire northern shore of the Black Sea and would try to “transform it, as much as possible, into the Russian Sea”, analyzes Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, doctor in geopolitics and associate researcher at the Thomas More Institute. Maintenance.
L’Express: What are Russia’s priorities in the Black Sea?
Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier: It’s Ukraine, quite simply. With the naval blockade of its ports, of Odessa (strategic port city in the south-west of the country, editor’s note), it is for Putin to asphyxiate Ukraine, its economy. Unable to take Odessa immediately, the Russians relied on a blockade. But they did not go to war with a clear strategic idea around the use of the Black Sea.
Moscow assures that it is the Western sanctions – “illegal” according to them – which obstruct the export of cereals, blocked in the Ukrainian ports. And that lifting them would avert a global food crisis. Does the establishment of a blockade in the Black Sea allow them to justify this blackmail?
It is secondary. Initially, Putin’s idea is to regain control of Ukraine, or in part, directly or indirectly, through what they can conquer, on the one hand. And on the other hand, in their vision of things, what would remain of Ukraine should be a Western Ukraine, geographically landlocked, deprived of the Black Sea. So yes, in the current extension of the war, they are using this lever to get the sanctions lifted. But it is above all Ukraine their objective. There is a real Russian obsession about it.
What is the interest, for Russia, of controlling the whole northern flank of the Black Sea?
Even beyond the interest, there is a logic of identity, a passion in the sad sense of the term. The Russians consider that Ukraine as such does not exist, that it must be reduced to nothing as a state. Then there are geostrategic interests: control of the Black Sea. It is a question of transforming, as much as possible, the Black Sea into the Russian Sea. They say so. When they seized Crimea in 2014, it changed the balance of power. Since then, they have militarized the entire Crimean peninsula, they have strengthened their fleet. They consider that it is the southern flank of Russia, that the Black Sea should be a kind of pool clause closed, completely locked by the Russian army.
They speak of southern strategic passion to designate Crimea. This is what they started to develop from 2014. They want to control the whole northern part of the Black Sea – in the south there is Turkey. And develop a dominant position there and prohibit, as much as possible, ships from NATO member countries from going there.
Has the Black Sea always been a field of tension, of demonstrations of force between the different blocs?
We would have to go back to the reign of Catherine II, in the 18th century. For her, the idea was to retake Constantinople (now Istanbul) from the Ottomans, on the assumption that Russia is the third Rome. So there is already an issue in the Black Sea. Then comes the Crimean War (1853-1856): the objective from the English and French point of view is to drive back the Russians who seek to advance to the detriment of the Ottoman Empire. It was at this time that the strategy of “warm seas” developed. In it, there is the Russian will to take control of the Black Sea, and the Turkish straits, which command access to the Mediterranean.
In France, we have developed, in our representations, a primarily North/South vision of the Mediterranean, with control of North Africa. The main logics in the Mediterranean are obviously East/West, and this starts from the Black Sea, which is not just a backyard of the Mediterranean. It opens onto the latter, which itself opens onto the world ocean via the Suez Canal or the Strait of Gibraltar. You have to look at this through different orders of magnitude.
From when did the French vision on the Black Sea evolve?
It has long been a form of neglect, disinterest. The vision changed when France established an empire in what was called French North Africa. And during the Cold War, the Black Sea was also a space of tension, face-to-face. To the north there was the USSR, plus Bulgaria and Romania which were satellites; and to the south was Turkey, which was NATO’s watchtower on the southwestern flank of the USSR.
What role can Turkey play in the resolution of the conflict, or more modestly in the unblocking of ports and traffic in the Black Sea?
Turkey’s position will be very important. That’s why it’s being spared, despite the disagreements there may be with it within NATO, with the question of the S-400s, its ambiguous partnership with Russia… still has the idea that we cannot purely and simply write off Turkey because it is the southern shore of the Black Sea, it controls the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, in particular thanks to the convention of Montreux in 1936. In the relationship of forces, in a Black Sea which is one of the theaters of confrontation in this new cold war, the Turkish position is of prime importance.
Turkey has also blocked access to its straits to foreign military buildings. This means that the Russian fleet present there cannot be reinforced by elements coming from the North Sea Fleet. This is to the detriment of Russia, but also prohibits NATO member countries from sending their own fleet to the Black Sea. Turkey seeks to maintain a balance between support for Ukraine on the one hand, which is genuine, military (with the sending of drones) and diplomatic, and does not want, on the other, to break all moorings with Russia.