Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday that NATO should play a bigger role in security in the Black Sea, integrating Ukraine’s air and missile defenses with those of alliance members.
The Black Sea and its Ukrainian coast have been crucial theaters of war since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
“The Black Sea is fundamental in making the whole of Europe peaceful and future-oriented,” Kuleba said, speaking via video link, at a Black Sea security conference in Bucharest, Romania.
“Unfortunately, it is also a demonstration of how quickly things can deteriorate if one neglects the threats. The time has come to turn the Black Sea into what the Baltic Sea has become, the sea of NATO.”
Those remarks were put aside in Moscow, where Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing: “The Black Sea can never be a NATO sea.”
He added, “This is a common sea, which must be a sea of cooperation, interaction and security for all its seaside countries. This security is indivisible.”
Both Moscow and Kiev depend on the sea for trade, including supplying grain markets, as they are two of the world’s largest food exporters. The Russian blockade threatened to cause a global food crisis last year until the United Nations and Turkey brokered a deal to keep the ports open as diplomacy continued to extend it.
“We need to tackle the problem of common Russia together,” Kuleba said. “For example, I support the experts’ idea of integrating Ukraine’s air and missile defense systems with those of NATO allies in the Baltic and Black Seas.”
NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana did not directly comment on Kuleba’s call, but later said that the alliance continues to strengthen its presence in the Black Sea region.
He said that a joint working group had been formed with the European Union to deal with critical infrastructure.
“I encourage countries in the Black Sea region to embrace this new format and to be active in it because the Black Sea has infrastructure… We need protection,” Gewana said.
Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said a strong NATO foothold in the Black Sea was “a must” and that his country would continue to work with NATO allies and develop a regular presence in the Black Sea.
Black Sea Fleet
The Russian Black Sea Fleet is located in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow captured and annexed in 2014, and seizing Ukraine’s ports has been a major goal for Russia.
Since the invasion last year, Moscow has controlled the entire coast of the Sea of Azov that opens into the Black Sea, but its advance along the Black Sea coast has stalled about 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Ukraine’s main port of Odessa.
Kiev has no comparable navy, but the influence of Russia’s supremacy at sea has waned since Ukraine sank Russia’s flagship cruiser Moskva a year ago and recaptured Snake Island, a rocky outcrop near the sea lanes to Odessa.
In northern Europe, the security map around the Baltic Sea was redrawn last year by Finland and Sweden’s decision to apply to join NATO, leaving Russia soon to be the only coastal nation outside the Western military alliance.
Applications by Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO would have the same effect on the Black Sea, where Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey are already members.
Kuleba said the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius would be an opportunity to move forward with Ukraine’s long-awaited membership in NATO, “to show that not only is the door open, but there is a clear plan on when and how Ukraine will enter it.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Kiev needed guarantees that would make future Russian aggression impossible. “There is no alternative to Ukraine joining NATO,” he said.
(cover) By Louisa Elley and Jason Hovett; Additional reporting from the Reuters Moscow bureau. Editing by Peter Graf and Mark Heinrich
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