With most of the focus ashore and the US Navy out of the Black Sea, it is easy to forget that an unappreciated potential flashpoints on NATO’s borders with Ukraine are not on its land borders well to the west of most of the recent fighting, but at sea.
John Konrad over at gCaptain has been watching this better than anyone and outlines the floating tenderbox in the western Black Sea;
Right now the ‘Warlike Operations Area’ does not extend to the territorial waters of neighboring Romania, a NATO member, but there is a growing concentration of ships hiding inside the territorial waters of Bulgaria and Romania which Russia could look to target if NATO does not start protecting the sea routes off the coast of NATO member nations.
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According to several sources and a NAVTEX message reportedly issued by Russia, the Russian Navy has already started performing “counterterrorist operations” against shipping beyond Ukraine. According to a report by Dryad, three vessels have been detained by the Russian Navy and a fourth ship sustained light damage, though it is unclear how and when this damage was sustained.
As Konrad outlines in his post, the Russians have already attacked merchant ships from NATO nations with no response. With a possible attack on Odessa and other actions west, the potential flash point with Russia bringing the conflict to a higher crisis may not happen as many expect on a land border or in the air – but has often happened in European wars, at sea.
