RUSSIA`S ESCALATION IN THE BLACK SEA HAS TURKEY ON EDGE / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

Russia’s Escalation in the Black Sea Has Turkey on Edge

Moscow is signaling a shift toward long-term maritime coercion, endangering Ankara’s energy strategy.

By: Antonia Colibasanu

Pressure is building on Ukraine and Russia to end their nearly four-year war, setting off a scramble for leverage that is unnerving some of their neighbors. 

One of the hottest areas of contention is the Black Sea, where escalating attacks by both sides have drawn condemnation, warnings and urgent calls for diplomacy from the Turkish government. 

What Ankara fears most in this situation is an escalation spiral that leaves the Black Sea an irreversibly militarized, Russian-dominated space.

In a statement issued on Dec. 15, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said an unidentified unmanned aerial vehicle approaching Turkish airspace over the Black Sea was detected and that NATO-assigned and domestically operated F-16 fighter jets were scrambled on an alert mission that ended with the drone being downed. 

This is the latest indicator that Turkey is getting anxious about what's happening in the Black Sea. 

On  Dec. 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan proposed a limited agreement on the Russia-Ukraine war, with both parties agreeing to refrain from attacks on energy facilities and ensuring navigation security in the Black Sea until they can agree on a comprehensive peace deal. 

This came after Turkey's Foreign Ministry warned on Dec. 12 that the damage to a Turkish-owned ship in a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Chornomorsk port highlighted the potential for escalation in the Black Sea, emphasizing the need to safeguard freedom of navigation and protect energy and port infrastructure in the region. 

These incidents are not the first time Turkey has signaled concern over escalation in the Black Sea. 

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Ukraine’s drone attacks on two Russian vessels – the Kairos and Virat – as they passed through the sea. 

Both reportedly were part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet. 

On Dec. 2, the Turkish maritime authority also reported that a tanker carrying sunflower oil from Russia to Georgia was attacked in the Black Sea. 

On Dec. 13, Russia deployed a Kinzhal hypersonic missile to strike Ukraine’s Odesa port. 

The port is no stranger to Russian attacks, but this was reportedly the first time Moscow used a hypersonic missile against it. 

Designed to penetrate advanced air defenses, Kinzhals are typically reserved for high-value targets, underscoring the seriousness of the attack. 

Officially, Moscow described the strike as retaliation for Kyiv’s own strikes against civilian infrastructure inside Russia, as well as its sea drone attacks on Russian-bound tankers. 

More important, Russia is blurring the line between military objectives and commercial shipping, raising the risk profile for all traffic in the Black Sea basin. 

Moscow’s message seems to be that the Black Sea is no longer a peripheral theater but is becoming – as it was at the beginning of the war – a contested space where economic activity is subject to military coercion.

By employing a system intended to defeat Patriot- and SAMP/T-type defenses, Moscow is demonstrating both capability and intent: capability in that it can hold coastal and maritime infrastructure at risk regardless of Western-supplied air defenses, and intent in that it is willing to expend scarce, high-end munitions to reinforce a coercive narrative of “retaliation” and maritime denial. 

In practical terms, this narrows the margin for risk management for commercial shipping and infrastructure developers alike: If hypersonic systems are used against ports, then fixed maritime assets by nature become harder to insure, defend or politically derisk.

Given the importance to Turkey of Black Sea shipping and energy, the Turkish government is alarmed by this turn of events. 

For weeks, Ankara has been warning both sides against escalation. 

As the conflict intensifies at sea, navigation in the Black Sea will become increasingly muddled and dangerous. 

Earlier in the war, Russia imposed a blockade and waged an air campaign designed to wreck Ukrainian grain exports. 

With time, however, a new grain corridor developed close to the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts, benefiting from NATO’s presence, the work of a Turkish-Bulgarian-Romanian demining task force and better coordination with international maritime authorities. 

Ukrainian exports and regional trade remain hampered by the war, but this corridor in the western Black Sea has become a critical lifeline.

The eastern and northeastern Black Sea, closer to Russian-controlled waters and Crimea, is effectively under Russian military dominance. 

While commercial traffic continues to operate in this area, it does so under implicit Russian control and at elevated risk. 

That risk, however, is generally assessed as lower than in the northwestern Black Sea, as threats in the eastern sector have so far been largely limited to drone activity. 

By contrast, the northwestern Black Sea – including the approaches to Odesa and the Danube delta – is exposed to intermittent missile strikes and drone attacks. 

Navigation in this area remains possible but is highly conditional, dependent on real-time security assessments, naval escorts and rapidly fluctuating risk premiums. 

Russia’s use of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile in Odesa underscores not only a sharp increase in perceived risk but also Moscow’s apparent willingness to treat this area as a medium-to-long-term operational theater rather than a zone of temporary disruption.

Given the region’s importance not only for Ukrainian shipping but also for long-term energy and infrastructure projects that could challenge Russian influence, such a move would make strategic sense. 

One of these initiatives is the Neptun Deep offshore gas project, located in Romanian waters and jointly led by OMV Petrom (majority-controlled by Austria’s OMV) and Romania’s state-owned Romgaz. 

Expected to start delivering gas around 2027, Neptun Deep would produce roughly 8 billion cubic meters per year from its estimated 100 bcm reserves.

For Turkey, however, the greater concern is the Sakarya gas field, which was discovered in 2020 and already feeds the Turkish national grid. 

Central to Ankara’s energy strategy, Sakarya is estimated to hold hundreds of billions of cubic meters of gas. 

A new reserve containing some 75 bcm of gas was discovered just this year. 

Ankara plans to launch its own offshore exploration and infrastructure development soon.

If these projects are realized, they would weaken Russia’s historical monopoly on gas supplies in the region, diminishing its ability to use energy to influence the countries of Southeastern Europe and the Black Sea basin. 

A fully developed Neptun Deep would loosen Moscow’s grip on Southeastern European gas markets, while expanded Turkish offshore development underpins Ankara’s ambition to reduce import dependence and strengthen its role as a regional energy producer. 

Therefore, Moscow likely views both projects as strategic competitors.

Legally, neither project is in Russian-controlled waters. 

Control of the airspace above them, however, is not so clearly defined. 

As it stands, both projects fall within the Flight Information Region (FIR) administered from Crimea, which since 2014 has been under de facto Russian control. 

In a militarized environment, FIR control becomes more than a technical aviation matter. 

Simply through manipulation or selective enforcement of FIR-related procedures, Moscow could disrupt construction and development of these offshore energy projects – interfering with helicopter transport, aerial surveys and emergency response, for example. 

Without firing a shot, Russia could impose operational delays, raise insurance and compliance costs and introduce legal ambiguity. 

The involvement of major U.S. companies as subcontractors in Neptun Deep may discourage Russia from some forms of chicanery, but it likely would not take much escalation nearby to drive up the project’s costs. 

(Similar mismatches between exclusive economic zones and FIRs exist in other strategically sensitive regions, notably the Arctic and the South China Sea.)

In this context, Turkey’s call for renewed security understandings – explicitly linking freedom of navigation with the protection of energy infrastructure – is not mere diplomatic rhetoric. 

It reflects a strategic calculation that unchecked escalation, combined with Russia’s capacity to project military power across the Black Sea, could not only disrupt commercial activity but also undermine critical regional energy projects. 

Beyond immediate navigation risks, it is the prospect of the Black Sea evolving into a permanently militarized, Russian-dominated space that is driving Turkey’s increasingly explicit warnings and broader calls for cooperative security frameworks addressing both maritime and energy sector vulnerabilities.

At the same time, as diplomatic signaling increasingly points toward the possibility of a ceasefire, Russia faces growing pressure to lock in strategic advantages before the window closes. 

Having failed to secure Odesa – a goal that is unattainable in the near term – Moscow appears focused on achieving a level of escalation at sea that would allow it to assert effective control over the Black Sea environment. 

This includes demonstrating the ability to influence or enforce FIR-related restrictions, or at least to signal that it possesses such leverage, thereby constraining the development of competing energy projects and protecting its long-term strategic position.