Why is the Sea of ​​Azov so important in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

Azov is the shallowest sea in the world. With an area of ​​37,600 km, Ukraine, Crimea and Russia share its borders. In recent days it has become the center of an escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine. The reason is that Putin is determined to control the Kerch Strait, thus hindering Ukraine’s access to the sea, essential for its trade.

The dispute between these two countries began last weekend, when Putin attacked several ships of the Ukrainian navy, claiming that they had violated Russian territorial waters. As a reply, .

The Sea of ​​Azov is crucial for grain and steel exports that are produced in eastern Ukraine. It joins the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait and from there ships can sail to any part of the world. With a maximum depth of 14 meters, it is the shallowest sea in the world, with a rich fauna that includes 300 varieties of invertebrates and nearly 80 varieties of fish, including sardines and anchovies. It also contains gas deposits and is an important crossing point for the transport of merchandise and passengers.

It is bordered to the north and west by Ukraine; to the southwest with Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014; and to the east with Russia. The shallow waters of the Sea of ​​Azov also bathe the south of Donbass, a Ukrainian region where the armed conflict with pro-Russian separatists left more than 10,000 dead in four years. In fact, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic controls a few kilometers of its coastline.

Russia blocks traffic

Russia has claimed control of the waters off the Crimean coast since annexing the peninsula in 2014. Both kyiv and Western countries accuse Moscow of deliberately “preventing” commercial ships from sailing through the Kerch Strait.

In 2003, Vladimir Putin and Leonid Koutchma, the Russian and Ukrainian president, concluded an agreement that provided for “joint management” of the Sea of ​​Azov and the Kerch Strait, considered “inland waters of Ukraine and Russia.” However, this document did not regulate the delimitation of the maritime border between the two countries.

Tensions reignited in 2016 with Moscow’s construction of a controversial 19-kilometre bridge over the Kerch Strait to connect Crimea with Russia. The structure was inaugurated in May 2018 by Vladimir Putin himself.

The arches of the bridge have prevented Ukraine’s largest freighters from passing under it. Furthermore, Russia’s ‘security’ in the strait is excessive. Russian border guards detain ships heading for Azov for hours and even days, which has provoked protests from the Ukrainian side.

Mariupol suffocated

The last major city under kyiv’s control in the east, the port of Mariupol was, before the war, one of Ukraine’s great ports and a major spa destination. Since the beginning of the Russian controls imposed on the ships, the activity of the port, key for Ukrainian exports, has been partially paralyzed.

In the first seven months of the year, revenue from the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, the other large Ukrainian port on the Sea of ​​Azov, fell by almost a quarter compared to the same period in 2017, according to Ukrainian media.

Control of this inland sea is crucial to ensuring Crimea’s security. It was when the Russian empire took it from the Ottoman in the mid-eighteenth century and it is now since the annexation of the peninsula by Russia, which has been condemned by almost the entire international community. Crimea cannot be understood without Azov and vice versa. The peninsula is bathed mainly by the Black Sea, but the Azov has its back.

The Russian-built bridge across the Sea of ​​Azov. Photo: Reuters

The Russian empire, which was born with Peter I and the foundation of Saint Petersburg, cannot be understood without the dominion of the Azov, where the Russian Don and Kuban rivers flow, since they were the only waters, along with those of the Black Sea, that were navigable all year. Russia can only be considered a full-fledged maritime power after the conquest of Azov, for which it had the invaluable help of the Cossacks. Once the sea was controlled, it was much easier to put an end to the Tatar resistance in Crimea in 1783. The Kerch Strait, which is between 4.5 and 15 kilometers wide and joins the Black and Azov seas, has since guaranteed control of this mass of water and had a strategic place of the first order during the Cold War.

The situation changed with the fall of the USSR: Ukraine kept most of Azov and its main ports, in particular Mariupol, Berdyansk and Kerch itself. With the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, however, Ukraine was blocked and depends on the approval of Moscow to be able to transit under the 19-kilometer bridge inaugurated in May by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Therefore, Ukraine wants to review the 2003 cooperation agreement, but Russia has already said that it will not accept a change in status and will never recognize the unilateral demarcation of the border in Azov waters. If Ukraine denounced the agreement, it could invite allied countries, especially the US Sixth Fleet, to dock at its ports in Azov, something Moscow has already said it will not allow. The most the Kremlin would be willing to admit is the docking of NATO ships in the Ukrainian port of Odessa, on the Black Sea. The rest would be interpreted as a hostile act.

The Azov is like a bottle with a neck that is the Kerch Strait. And the Ukrainians are now at the bottom of that bottle, with no room for maneuver.