What is Russia's Black Sea Aggression

 Pentagon chief stresses security cooperation

WASHINGTON ― On a single day last week, 40 Russian warships staged a mock landing in Crimea, 20 Russian fighters and bombers repelled a notional enemy from landing on the Crimean coast ― and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin began the first leg of his trip to Black Sea nations.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with Ukrainian Minister of Defense Andrii Taran and later with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today in Kyiv

With the high-profile trip to Georgia, Ukraine and Romania, Austin signaled the Biden administration sees the Black Sea as a front to challenge Russia, though he didn’t spell out a plan to do so. Austin and his aides used the visits to voice public support and, in private meetings, encourage security cooperation among NATO allies Romania, Turkey and Bulgaria ― and aspirants Georgia and Ukraine.

“The security and stability of the Black Sea are in the U.S.’s national interest and critical for the security of NATO’s eastern flank,” Austin said Oct. 20 in Romania. “The region, it goes without saying, is vulnerable to Russian aggression.

“We’ve seen evidence of that by ongoing actions in eastern Ukraine, the occupation of parts of Georgia, and the militarization of the Black Sea and provocative actions in the air and at sea.”

The overlapping activities highlight the Black Sea as a flashpoint in tension between Russia and the West. Now a maritime front line, experts consider it a strategic crossroads between Europe and Asia, a nexus for energy routes, and a springboard for Russia to project power into the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant and the Atlantic Ocean.

“The Black Sea is also the meeting point of four great forces: democracy in the West, Russian military aggression to the north, growing Chinese financial influence to the east and Middle Eastern instability in the south,” said Ionela Ciolan of the European Policy Center.

On the day of Austin’s visit to Romania, two Russian Su-30 jets scrambled to intercept two American B-1B bombers and two KC-135 tanker aircraft over the waters of the Black Sea “to identify the air targets and prevent a violation of Russia’s state border,” according to the Russian government news agency Tass.