Based on an analysis of Russia’s vision for the Black Sea, the country’s perceptions of threats emanating from the West and Moscow’s ambitions to reshape the global order, this paper identifies three enduring priorities likely to shape Russia’s posture in the Black Sea. These factors will persist beyond the war in Ukraine and continue to inform Russia’s policies in the wider region.
- Strategic domination of the Black Sea in the context of ongoing contestation with the Euro-Atlantic community, particularly NATO – Moscow views the Black Sea as a key battleground in its broader geopolitical struggle against Western influence.
- The need to continuously manage relations with Turkey – Given Ankara’s strategic position and its balancing act between Russia and the West, Russia must navigate an increasingly complex relationship with Turkey, at a time when Ankara is gradually aligning with the West on foreign and security policy.
- Adaptation to emerging multipolarity within the Black Sea region – This includes engaging in competitive cooperation with non-Western regional and extra-regional actors and strengthening interconnections with other strategic areas, such as the Caspian and Eastern Mediterranean, to reinforce Russia’s regional influence.
Russia’s vision for the Black Sea
Russia’s vision for the Black Sea as part of the country’s global re-ordering agenda is underpinned by three foundational principles: spheres of influence, differentiated sovereignty and anti-Westernism. The concept of spheres of influence, an amalgamation of 19th-century imperialism and 20th-century great power competition, is viewed by Moscow as a mechanism for creating a balance of power that ensures international stability, provided Russia is respected and recognized by other great powers. From this perspective, the defence of one’s sphere of influence is not only legitimate but also essential for global order and security, while Western refusal to accept this is seen as a primary source of conflict. Russia regards its role in the Black Sea as naturally hegemonic, framing its policies in the region as defensive responses to Western encroachment. From this perspective, dominance over the Black Sea is indispensable to rebuilding Russia’s imperial sphere of influence, reasserting great power status, and projecting influence into adjacent regional theatres and onto the global stage.
What constitutes Russia’s sphere of influence, however, is a matter of (re)interpretation. In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet collapse, Russia accepted the loss of the former Warsaw Pact countries and the Baltic states but continued to view the former Soviet republics as a zone of its ‘privileged interests’, which Russia commonly referred to as the ‘near abroad’. Moscow initially maintained dominance in these ex-Soviet countries through structural inequalities in power and state capacity – inequalities that Russia actively sought to perpetuate. In this sense, only parts of the Black Sea region fall within Russia’s direct sphere of influence. As Russia’s self-confidence grew, however, the geographical scope of its influence projection expanded, including regions from the Western Balkans to the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.
At the same time, former Soviet republics have consolidated their statehood relative to the early 1990s and have sought to reposition themselves vis-à-vis Russia. Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and, more recently, Armenia, have pursued paths of integration with the West to distance themselves from Russian dominance, while Azerbaijan has followed a more independent trajectory. Moreover, Russia has been forced to accept the growing influence of actors such as Turkey, Iran and China in the so-called ‘near abroad’ – a development largely accelerated by Russia’s need for resources in the war on Ukraine. As Moscow’s global ambitions expanded, its uncontested dominance in its immediate neighbourhood weakened, gradually blurring the boundaries between what it sees as its ‘near abroad’ and the broader Global South.
As Moscow’s global ambitions expanded, its uncontested dominance in its immediate neighbourhood weakened, gradually blurring the boundaries between what it sees as its ‘near abroad’ and the broader Global South.
Inherent to the concept of spheres of influence is the notion of differentiated sovereignty. Although Russia de jure recognized the independence of the former Soviet republics in their existing administrative boundaries, it has never fully respected their sovereignty or territorial integrity. Instead, Moscow asserted a special right to protect Russian minorities and Russian speakers – loosely defined – claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction. To create pretexts for intervention, Russia pursued a policy of ‘passportization’, distributing Russian citizenship to residents of Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as Crimea, and subsequently invoked the constitutional obligation to protect Russian citizens abroad. At the same time, Moscow has consistently accused the West of applying double standards in the interpretation and enforcement of international law, criticizing Western military interventions conducted without a UN mandate, even as Russia has claimed for itself both the right and obligation to intervene in its immediate neighbourhood.
In an attempt to court the Global South and galvanize support for its challenge to the Western-led international order, Russia promotes a seemingly benign vision of multipolarity, grounded in the principles of sovereign equality, respect for diversity and inclusivity – this rhetoric often masks a different reality. In practice, this vision expects smaller states to join regional hegemons, assumes the moral equivalence of autocracies and democracies, and treats the domestic affairs of great powers as off-limits to external scrutiny. This results in a differentiated interpretation of sovereign equality, where a state’s level of sovereignty is effectively determined by its proximity to great powers, its size and its geopolitical weight – rendering some states ‘more equal’ and ‘more sovereign’ than others.
Russia approaches multipolarity as both a strategic objective and an ideological instrument. The idea is most closely associated with the Primakov Doctrine, which proposed the Russia–China–India strategic alignment as a counterweight to Western hegemony. The key pillars of the doctrine include the preservation of Russia’s sphere of influence, challenging the US unipolarity, particularly through deepened ties with China, and ensuring that NATO does not expand. In that sense, multipolarity for Russia is a fundamentally anti-Western project, designed to challenge Western dominance and reshape the global order in Russia’s favour. This is particularly evident in the Black Sea region, where Russia’s prime objective is to diminish the Euro-Atlantic presence, while engaging in ‘friendly balancing’ with states such as Turkey and China. Russia believes that it can engage in competitive cooperation with ‘non-Western’ states that oppose the Western primacy in international systems and reject Western interventionism on the grounds of human rights and humanitarian considerations.
Discontent in Turkey–West relations, not least during the 2016–21 period, has been welcomed by Moscow. Despite Turkey’s NATO membership, Russia at times perceives it as a non-Western actor whose ‘strategic autonomy’ should be cultivated and harnessed. However, the recent growing engagement between Turkey and the West/Europe in foreign and security policy is straining Ankara–Moscow relations. Turkey and Russia oppose the presence of extra-regional players, including non-littoral NATO actors, in the Black Sea. Yet, Ankara also rejects Russia’s bid for dominance in the region and supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and capability to defend itself. These latter factors provide a conducive foundation for Turkey–West cooperation in this region. In any case, how Turkey–West and Turkey–Russia relations unfold in the Black Sea will have a formative impact on the emerging regional geopolitical order.
Anti-Rossiya: Ukraine as an anti-Russian actor
Russia’s posture in the Black Sea is deeply intertwined with its domestic priorities, forming a nexus between concerns over internal stability and ambitions for external domination. This is reflected in Russia’s search for a post-Soviet imperial identity, which under late Putinism has coalesced around the notion of Russia as a ‘civilization state’ that encompasses the union of three Slavic nations – Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Putin’s civilizational narrative rests on two key claims. First is the denial of the existence of sufficiently distinctive national identities among these Slavic nations, asserting that their emergence as independent nation-states was a historical accident – an aberration partly engineered by Soviet policies on nationalities and exploited by foreign adversaries.
The second claim is the notion of Russia as an extraterritorial nation whose political and cultural boundaries do not coincide, and which asserts a self-proclaimed obligation to protect Russians and Russian speakers beyond its formal jurisdiction. In justifying the annexation of Crimea, Putin asserted that it was Russia’s duty to defend the people of Crimea from unspecified threats posed by Ukraine’s so-called ‘Nazi’ regime. In light of Ukraine’s resistance, Russia has opted to forcibly dismember the country and construct a new Russia – Novorossiya – by incorporating territories that Moscow claims should have belonged to Russia in the first place, thus framing the conquest as the correction of a historical injustice.
In the Kremlin’s worldview, neighbouring states are not seen as potential friends or equal partners but as puppets of hostile foreign powers – in this case, the West – manipulated to destabilize and diminish Russia.
In justifying the full-scale invasion, Putin claimed to be acting in self-defence, invoking an imminent threat allegedly posed by Ukraine. This narrative, marked by striking hypocrisy, reflects Russia’s long-standing fear that neighbouring states outside its control pose a direct threat to its internal stability. In the Kremlin’s worldview, these states are not seen as potential friends or equal partners but as puppets of hostile foreign powers – in this case, the West – manipulated to destabilize and diminish Russia. As Stephen Kotkin has aptly observed, Russia views its smaller neighbours not as independent actors, but as ‘beachheads for enemies’.
Putin’s decision to launch a full-scale invasion and engage in conventional, state-on-state warfare reflects Russia’s enduring conviction that territorial control remains the most effective and secure means of ensuring political domination and an ‘active defence’ against perceived threats. While Russia frequently engages in hybrid operations, it has also demonstrated a readiness to escalate and deploy conventional military forces to achieve its objectives swiftly and decisively. This approach was first tested against Georgia in 2008, when Moscow perceived Tbilisi as transforming into a hostile state – not only by moving closer to NATO but also by potentially destabilizing Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region. As a result, Russia secured full control over two Georgian regions, including Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast. This was later followed by the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s choice between hybrid and conventional aggression appears largely determined by its assessment of its relative military superiority and the absence of collective security guarantees for the targeted state. Thus far, Moscow has avoided peer-to-peer confrontation or open military engagement with a NATO ally.
The interconnection between Russia’s perceived foreign and domestic threats is best encapsulated in the notion of ‘anti-Russia’ (anti-Rossiya), a concept that has often been invoked in the context of the war on Ukraine. The first articulation of this idea appeared in Putin’s 2021 essay, ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, where he not only denied the existence of a distinct Ukrainian identity but also claimed that hostile powers have sought to turn Ukraine into the antithesis of Russia – a geopolitical tool designed to undermine Russian sovereignty and national security. He wrote:
According to Putin, elements of this anti-Russia project include the systematic marginalization of the Russian language and cultural identity, the promotion of a political system fundamentally different from Russia’s, and the gradual expansion of Western influence into what he sees as historically Russian space via Ukraine. Therefore, the invasion of Ukraine is part of Russia’s active defence posture aimed at preventing the emergence and proliferation of anti-Russia regimes in its neighbourhood. In his pre-invasion address, Putin restated this position, asserting that in territories adjacent to Russia, ‘which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.’
Recently, this concept has been extended to Moldova, with Russian officials warning that the country is next in line to be transformed into a bastion of anti-Russian policies – promoting pro-Romanian unionist sentiment and accelerating European and NATO integration efforts – despite Moldova’s officially proclaimed policy of neutrality. Unlike Ukraine, Moldova lacks the deep historical and cultural ties that Russia frequently invokes to justify its claims. This demonstrates that the rationale of countering anti-Russian sentiment is now being applied more broadly to any neighbouring state that seeks closer alignment with Western institutions and pursues a democratic system of governance. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov recently reinforced this narrative in connection with the pro-democracy protests in Georgia, arguing that there are ongoing attempts to push Georgia back onto an anti-Russian trajectory reminiscent of the Saakashvili era.
Moscow’s aggressive ‘pre-emptive’ strategies, however, often result in counterproductive outcomes. This is particularly evident in the case of Ukraine, where Russian aggression has accelerated the consolidation of the Ukrainian state, actively strengthening Ukrainian identity around the Ukrainian language in direct opposition to Russian political and cultural influence. For example, Russia considers Odesa to be a Russian city based on spurious historical and cultural grounds and due to the presence of a large Russian-speaking population. However, since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, pro-Russia sentiment in Odesa has sharply declined. Historically, the city has been culturally diverse, with Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, Moldovan and other communities coexisting, and Russian serving as the most widely spoken common language. This linguistic and cultural dynamic was common across Ukraine’s east and south but has been changing rapidly – including in Odesa.
Even if Russia were to succeed in capturing additional Ukrainian territory, it would likely face persistent local resistance and be compelled to implement aggressive Russification policies to maintain control. More broadly, the Ukrainian public remains overwhelmingly unwilling to accept the outcomes of Russian aggression, and animosity towards Russia is likely to endure at levels previously unseen between the two nations. In his efforts to prevent the emergence of an ‘anti-Russia’ Ukraine, Putin may ultimately have succeeded in creating exactly that.
Russia’s objective of halting NATO’s eastward expansion to include Georgia and Ukraine may have been achieved, but Moscow’s broader ambition of neutralizing the emergence of a hostile, Western-aligned Ukraine remains unfulfilled. This suggests that even if a ceasefire is reached and Russia secures de facto control over parts of Ukrainian territory, it will continue to view the remainder of democratic, EU-aspiring Ukraine as a fundamental threat to its internal stability and external dominance. Past patterns of Russia’s instrumentalization of conflicts across the greater Black Sea region indicate that Moscow is likely to persist in its efforts to destabilize and further dismember Ukraine, ultimately aiming to sever Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. Whether Russia has or will develop a capacity to do so is another matter, depending on the parameters of the ceasefire and Western support for Ukraine.
