Something strange is happening. It may be innocent, but then again, it involves the Kremlin.
Vessels from Russian ports have begun to arrive at the Moldovan Danube harbor of Giurgiulești. Questions about the ships were first raised by Andriy Klymenko, a Ukrainian expert on the militarization of the Black Sea, sanctions, and risk forecasting. In July, he noted that a vessel had reached Giurgiulești directly from the Russian port of Novorossyisk, a major naval base.
Since then, direct voyages from Russian Black Sea ports have been made by another four vessels in August and September, according to data collected through daily monitoring by the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies, whose databases are regularly updated for public use. Klymenko said that the vessels were not subject to inspection by the Ukrainian or Romanian authorities, so they could have been carrying anything from standard general cargo to something more sinister.
The shipments came as Moldova prepared to elect a president and before a key vote on EU membership on October 20.
Giurgiulești port has a direct railway connection to the Russian puppet state of Transnistria, which the Kremlin uses to interfere in Moldovan affairs.
Russia has been struggling to rotate the officer corps of its 1,500-man force in Transnistria and modernize its equipment. Russian officers have been prevented from transiting through Moldova since 2015 when the government said the force was on its territory illegally. The launch of Russia’s all-out war in Ukraine in February 2022 meant that the alternative land route was also closed. When the Kremlin sent officers via the Moldovan capital Chișinău in July 2022, they were turned away. Angry Russian protests followed.
Giurgiulești offers an alternative route, and the vessels have the protections offered to international shipping. In other words, while they pass through Ukrainian and Romanian waters, they cannot legally be stopped and searched.
Ukraine and neighbors like Romania have been working to improve navigation on the Danube. It’s one way of sidestepping Russian attacks and threats to shipping since 2022.
To increase exports, there has been dredging work at the mouth of the Bystre Canal to increase the passage draft of vessels from 3.9m to 6.5 m. This opened access for “river-sea” type vessels to the Danube ports of Ukraine and Moldova, in particular Giurgiulești. The Danube Port of Giurgiulești (Portul International Liber Giurgiuleștior PILG), which is owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development or EBRD, gives Moldova access to the Black Sea. The dredging has likewise benefitted Ukraine at its ports of Izmail and Reni.
So, what’s really going on with these newly arrived vessels? It could be entirely innocent, of course. The ships may just be a signal that bigger commercial vessels are exploiting the new opportunities provided by dredging.
But it would be unwise to simply wave away questions. The Kremlin often seems obsessed with covert operations, unsurprising perhaps given it is run by former KGB agents.
On October 4, the Monitoring Group of the Black Sea Institute for Strategic Studies warned that unhindered voyages of such vessels to Moldova, and thereby to the borders of Ukraine and Romania, represent a clear threat. After all, Russian troops were covertly moved to Crimea on merchant vessels just before the Kremlin’s annexation began in 2014.
True, the Kremlin has suffered huge setbacks in its imperial quest to make the Black Sea a Russian lake. It has lost numerous naval vessels and Ukraine broke the blockade through a mixture of military action and merchant vessel passage through the territorial waters of NATO states.
But the war continues, and Russia’s ambitions are unchanged. Attacks on civilian vessels in Odesa in October have only underlined the point.
Once again, the united efforts of Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania are needed for a preventive response. The high level of professionalism of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the successful experience of mutual efforts with Romania and Bulgaria on the grain corridor have shown what is possible. The strengthening of the North-Western Black Sea alliance should be the next step.
It’s not just an issue for Ukraine — remember that Russia not only stole Crimea but then took the Ukrainian sea shelf with its gas deposits in 2015 and has consistently threatened anyone standing up to its bullying. A victorious Russia is very clearly a menace to all Black Sea states. It’s time we stopped it.
Olya Korbut is an analyst on sanctions at the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies (Ukraine) and a Non-resident Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA,) She has worked on OSINT monitoring and analysis of Black Sea militarization by Russia since 2014.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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