The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, highlighted in his speech to the nation this Wednesday that the successes of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Black Sea will weaken Russian influence in the Middle East.
“It is very important that, thanks to Ukrainian bravery, we have practically pushed the Russian fleet to the eastern part of the Black Sea,” Zelensky recalls about the campaign of attacks with missiles and self-made maritime drones that in recent months has damaged several Russian ships and submarines and forced them to retreat to the east.
“Russia cannot use our sea to extend its aggression to other parts of the world, as it did in Syria,” Zelensky said in his speech on Tuesday. The Ukrainian head of state recalled that “Russia caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria using the Black Sea as its base” and the Crimean peninsula – which is part of Ukraine but was occupied by Russia in 2014 – as a “launching platform for its military operations”.
“Now the situation has changed fundamentally,” Zelensky said. According to the Ukrainian president, having lost the clear hegemony it enjoyed in that sea will deprive Russia of “dominating this area and extending its influence and destruction to other countries.”
The Black Sea is connected through the Bosphorus with the Eastern Mediterranean, which washes the coasts of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. Russia was able to redouble its maritime military capacity in this area by converting the Crimean peninsula after its occupation into a large military base for its fleet.