NATO’s former supreme commander has warned the risk of war has soared following Russia’s boarding action against a Turkish grain ship in Bulgarian waters this week.
Retired US Admiral James Stavridis says President Vladimir Putin’s orders to enforce an economic blockade on Ukraine’s grain exports on shipping transiting the Black Sea could drag NATO into the war.
“Russia’s actions in the international waters of the Black Sea create a real risk of escalating this to a war at sea,” the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe between 2009 and 2013 told Politico.
“If Russia starts seizing vessels or seeks to scare them away, I think it likely NATO will respond by supporting a humanitarian corridor for shipping.”
Russia and Ukraine account for some 30 per cent of the world’s exported wheat.
And while efforts to move millions of tonnes of the staple food out of Ukraine’s grain silos overland have been somewhat successful, only shipping can provide the bulk handling necessary to move enough fast enough to critical markets such as Africa.
President Putin abruptly cancelled a UN-brokered safe transit deal in July. Now he’s ordered his navy to consider any ship crossing the Black Sea to or from Ukrainian ports a military threat.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded in kind, warning that all commercial shipping operating around Russia’s Black Sea ports would be considered valid targets from August 23.
On Monday, Moscow made the first move by firing warning shots and boarding a foreign-owned vessel destined for a Ukrainian port. Kyiv responded on Wednesday by promising safe passage to the Chinese-owned and Hong Kong-flagged container ship Joseph Schulte, which had been trapped in the port of Odessa since the war began in February last year.
On Friday, Ukrainian naval drones attacked two Russian warships in the southern Black Sea, including the corvette that conducted the boarding raid.
Escalation risk
International shipping in the Black Sea is funnelled towards Turkey’s narrow Bosphorous Strait and Dardanelles to access the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. This produces a choke point both combatants can exploit.
On Monday, the Russian corvette Vasily Bykov approached the Turkish-owned but Palau-flagged dry cargo ship Sukru Okan while operating in Bulgaria’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
According to Jamestown Foundation think-tank senior fellow Vladimir Socor, the Turkish ship attempted to evade.
“The Russian warship cited a purported right to ‘search for prohibited goods being transported’, without specifying what goods and which authority had prohibited them,” said Socor.
The Russian warship then fired warning shots and deployed a Ka-29 helicopter to deliver a heavily armed boarding party to the Okan.
“This is the first incident on record in which the Russian military has opened fire – if only with light weapons – on a non-Ukrainian civilian target beyond Ukraine’s territory or waters in the Black Sea,” Socor stated.
After ordering the crew to sit on the deck with their hands on their head, the Russian marines “conducted inspection work” on the ship’s cargo and documentation before allowing it to continue towards the Ukrainian port of Izmail.
“Brazenly, this action took place within a third country’s (Bulgaria’s) EEZ, wherein the Russian warship had been ‘conducting exercises’ for several weeks,” Socor wrote.
Admiral Stavridis labelled the raid “tantamount to piracy”. He warned “the Russian Black Sea fleet would be militarily overmatched” by neighbouring Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria if another such incident was to escalate.
In the meantime, he suggested NATO forces could begin air and sea escort of grain ships to Ukraine’s main port of Odessa.
Kyiv, however, is not waiting for intervention.
On Friday, it attacked the Vasily Bykov and the Russian frigate Pytlivyy. Moscow claims the warships were not damaged.
Diplomatic fallout
“Russia’s aggression militarises the Black Sea,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov stated shortly after the incident.
“Russian ships have lingered in the waters of our exclusive economic zone for some 20 days now.”
He earlier conceded that his nation’s EEZ only conveyed clear sovereignty over economic activities. But an EEZ is widely considered to represent a nation’s “front doorstep”.
Under the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), foreign warships have the right of “innocent passage … so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State”.
Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel had previously condemned Russia’s move to extend its blockade operations deep into the Black Sea.
“The entry of Russian warships into the exclusive economic zones of Black Sea countries, including that of Bulgaria, as well as the declaration of warning areas in them, is dangerous to navigation, harms the economic interests of our country and its citizens, and is inadmissable,” she said.
Prime Minister Denkov cited NATO as his first line of defence.
“Bulgaria needs to integrate more closely with NATO. This is like a bomb shelter for us today,” he added.
But tensions are causing international shipping insurers to reconsider the risk of operating in the Black Sea. And that has implications for every nation on its coast.
“Some regional experts are urging shipping authorities to forgo traditional Black Sea routes and solely use the Sulina Channel, a 40-mile waterway connecting the sea to Moldovan, Romanian and Ukrainian ports via the Danube Delta,” said Socor.
“Even if Moscow does not immediately act on its threats, just the fear of an attack, or the presence of the embargo, is stirring enough uncertainty to spook insurers and international grain markets,” Foreign Policy analysts warned last month.
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel