Want Peace? Kick Russia’s Navy Out Of The Black Sea—For Years

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has spent the past few months previewing a comprehensive ten-point peace plan. But Zelenskyy’s 10-point plan remains far too focused on guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, overlooking Ukraine’s vital interest in a peaceful and stable Black Sea. The omission is a mistake. Ukraine can only count on a lasting, durable peace if both his ten points for piece are met and Russia’s naval forces are expelled from the Black Sea—for years.

Lacking some sudden change in Russia’s government, any future Russia-Ukraine peace agreement that overlooks the naval balance of power in the Black Sea is simply a recipe for continued conflict. If the war ended without a Black Sea settlement, Russia would get back to the dirty business bullying weaker Black Sea stakeholders within months, harassing merchant shipping, infiltrating Crimean waters, and generally raising tensions throughout the region.

To give peace a real chance, any future armistice must evict Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, firmly breaking the long-held regional perception that the Black Sea and Sea of Azov are Russian Lakes.

Force matters. Deprived of local naval superiority, Russia loses a tool for future mischief-making.

Kicking Russian naval forces out of the Black Sea makes sense. Deprived of the temptation to dominate Ukraine’s southern maritime flank, Russia can focus on other, less provocative—and ultimately more profitable—projections of Russian State power in the Arctic or elsewhere.

It would be a big deal. Sending the Black Sea Fleet packing is a huge change for booth Russia and the region.

Since World War II, Russia’s Navy has dominated the Black Sea. Black Sea supremacy is part of the Russian mindset, serving as something of a security blanket against long-held imperial-era fears that an Ottoman horde—or, in more modern terms, NATO or modern Turkey—would somehow seize control of the Black Sea and threaten Russia. To that end, Russia kept a disproportionately large fleet in the region. By 2015, according to the Office of Naval Intelligence, Russia’s Black Sea fleet included a cruiser, a destroyer, two guided missile frigates, and six submarines—a fleet far larger than necessary.

But rather than serve as a peaceful balancer, Russia’s local domination of the Black Sea proved to be too much of a temptation to just go and bully the neighbors.

Excluding Russian forces from the Black Sea is healthy. Not only does it stabilize the region, but it forces Russian society to come to grips with the idea that their country is no longer a superpower. And by forcing Russia to re-build local influence the old-fashioned way—through the gradual accretion of trust via sustained low-level cooperation with other Black Sea peers—the world gets a far more secure future.

Incorporating the Black Sea balance of power into a Ukraine peace agreement is an issue where Ukraine can attract more international support. In essence, demilitarizing the Black Sea solves a lot of problems for both Ukraine as well for as the countries that count on unconstrained Black Sea trade routes.

A stable and peaceful Black Sea is a great return on the international community’s investment in Ukraine’s continued resistance. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has cost the world an enormous amount. A failure to roll back Russia’s dominance of the Black Sea makes future conflict inevitable, putting the world’s investments in Ukrainian resistance in peril.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is still ongoing, but it is never too early to assemble the framework for a more peaceful future. Zelenskyy’s simple 10-point plan for peace is a great starting point, but it leaves Russia holding a big maritime knife to Ukraine’s commercial lifelines. If Russia’s Black Sea Fleet remains in place after the war, Russian nationalists will soon find all kinds of ways to use it.

Black Sea Supremacy Is A Gift To Turkey:

Expelling Russia from the Black Sea is a huge boon for the “on-the-move” Turkey, a surging regional power more formally known as the “Republic of Türkiye”. A Ukraine peace agreement that forces Russia out of the Black Sea converts Turkey into the dominant arbiter of Black Sea security almost overnight.

It offers an interesting gambit. Removing the Russian Black Sea fleet from the board offers NATO a basis to settle out some long-term disagreements with Türkiye. If NATO countries backed Turkey’s assumption of a high-profile geostrategic plum of serving as the Black Sea’s strategic arbiter, Turkey would be foolish in sustaining their objections to Sweden and Finland formally joining the larger NATO alliance.

Russia, of course, will hate the idea of giving Turkey a free reign in the Black Sea, but the relative stability offered by making the Black Sea something of a Turkish lake grants Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Georgia time build up their naval forces in relative peace—a long process that will likely leverage Turkish-built vessels and Turkish military subsystems. This effort is already underway, with Turkey building two small corvette-sized Ada-class warships for Ukraine.

For Turkey, expelling Russian naval forces from the Black Sea and returning the Crimean naval base in Sebastopol to Ukraine removes a lot of problems. Russia’s destabilizing presence in the Syrian port of Tartus becomes far less tenable, opening a prestigious power vacuum in the Eastern Mediterranean that Turkey can, again, help fill. But the big win is in removing the constant, nagging threat of Russia’s lurking Black Sea Fleet. It helps Turkey move away from the tricky business of balancing Russian power and allows Turkish policymakers to get about the tough business of being a responsible and respected extra-regional power broker.

A strong peace agreement also helps reduce Russia’s long-term focus on undermining Turkish stewardship of the gates to the Black Sea. Expelling major Russian naval forces from the Black Sea shuts down efforts to achieve Russia’s enduring strategic aim of weakening Turkish control of the Dardanelles and Turkish Strait.

Black Sea Peace Gives Russia Freedom To Focus Elsewhere:

This would not be the first time a peace treaty forced Russia from the Black Sea. After the Crimean War, the subsequent 1856 Treaty of Paris “neutralized” the Black Sea, limiting Russia’s Black Sea presence to a puny 5,600-ton fleet of up to only 10 small ships.

It took decades for large Russian naval units to return to the Black Sea. Similarly, a future Ukraine peace treaty should ensure the local balance of power is equalized over time, allowing local Russian naval forces grow in conjunction with Ukraine, Romania and other Black Sea stakeholders.

For a Ukraine peace agreement to last, the era of Russian dominance in the Black Sea must end.

Russia will howl over the idea. But punitive measures do work. By firmly removing the Black Sea as an outlet for Russian expansionism in the 1800’s, Russia spent twenty-five years making much-needed societal reforms before returning to the region in force. After the Ukraine war ends, Russia can do the same, transforming their outrage over losing their dominant position in the Black Sea into making much-needed changes at home.