Three years ago, on 22 February, Russia invaded Ukraine, between the two, the Black Sea the way out in the Mediterranean. Since 2022, the Black Sea has been the theatre of many sources of dispute, territorial, military and economic. Control of the sea has become so crucial that it has opened up to a new danger: the Black Sea is a mined sea.
Sea mines in the Black Sea: An explosive danger
While the Kakhovka dam was destroyed in June 2023, many of the naval mines placed by the Russians on the left bank of the Dniepr were shifted to the Black Sea. Both countries continue to use mines, which now raise a real problem for tankers transiting the Black Sea. Both Ukraine and Russia have used mines to protect their positions, although one is considered defensive and the other offensive.
The type of naval mine used is a moored mine, which floats on the hull of a ship, but there are also drifting mines, both of which are dangerous because they can explode when they come into contact with ships. NATO considers that the maritime area of Odessa and the banks of the Dniepr River may have a high presence of these mines, the number of which is still unknown. In 2022, 98 mines were destroyed in the Black Sea.
This threat is difficult to predict because it depends on climatic conditions and water flow. They cause serious damage to boats and even sink them or injure crew ship, as happened in 2023 when a Panamanian boat collided with one of the mines and injured two of the men on board. Also in the same year, in October, the Al Najafov, a Liberian oil tanker, was rescued from a sea mine. As resistant as new boats are, they can still be a problem, provoke damage and a risk of oil spill if they cross the path of an oil tanker. The British Ministry of Defence warned about the naval mines used by Russian forces to attack civilian shipping. Moscow threaten against civilian ships trying to reach Ukrainian ports and said it considered them a potential military target.
Ukraine’s trade route for grain, a victory
Far from giving Russia an advantage, the naval mines actually helped Ukraine’s diplomacy and created a new safe sea route for its exports. Indeed, the Russian-Ukrainian war also had an impact on NATO members Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. Although Turkey’s intentions towards Russia are unclear, it could be seen that Ankara is working alongside Kiev for the sake of trade routes and the Bosporan Strait.
Some of the reasons for this coalition can be explained by Russia’s huge failure in the Black Sea. In fact, it started well for the Russian naval forces by blocking and destroying many harbours and making grain exports impossible. In July 2023, Russia withdrew from the Black Sea grain trade because it’s own exports were under a blockade. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of “blackmailing the world”.
But it didn’t achieve its aim and Ukraine’s neighbours to united around Ukrainian interests.
First, the new Black Sea grain agreement was brokered by the UN and Turkey to combat a global food crisis. If Ukraine initially protected its own ship to transport grain, it can now count on Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey to transport it through the sea, using a secured corridor in the far west of the Black Sea and land routes through Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Secondly, Kiev has gone to great lengths to fight back, using drones to push back Russian naval forces from the north-west Black Sea in the autumn of 2023, and finally Sevastopol and the well-known ports of Odessa are now active, but Reni and Izmail are still out of action.
Thanks to it, in 2023, 23.1 million tonnes of Ukrainian exports passed through this corridor.
Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria: New actors to clear Black Sea mines
The opening of the corridor also meant that Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey had to deal with sea mines more often. In March 2022, fishermen found a mine near the Bosphorus Strait. As a result, the Mine Counter-Measures Task Group Black Sea (MCM) was set up in the summer of 2023, and in January 2024 the three defence ministers of Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania signed an initiative to neutralise drifting mines. Angel Tîlvăr, the Romanian defence minister, denounced the “aggressiveness of Russia” and said the initiative was aimed at protecting Ukrainian grain exports.
However, in accordance with the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey has refused access to two British minesweepers. In fact, Turkey has been engaged in Black Sea diplomacy, on the one hand supplying Bayraktar TB2 drones to Kiev and on the other hand maintaining contacts with Moscow. Erdogan explained that this decision to block the Bosphorus Strait was taken to “avoid an escalation of the crisis”.
