The research is a result of the first year of implementation of the bilateral initiative ”Enhance knowledge of Russia’s behaviour in the Kola Peninsula and the Arctic region, as well as the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea region – and to compare in terms of similarities and differences”, financed under the Fund for bilateral relations 2014-2021.
Studies
FLANKS Working Paper – Information Warfare And Information Operations in the Black Sea Area
This paper covers the subject of information warfare from conceptualization, current features and examples to its place in the Russian strategic thinking and planning. The authors further exemplify the use of information warfare in the Black Sea Region, one of the main battlegrounds of Russian information warfare and information operations. Furthermore, a correlation between information warfare and an insecure cyber environment, as well as an assessment of the cybersecurity challenges in the Black Sea Region contribute to an overview on the subject.
Authors: Alina Bârgăoanu, Jakub Godzimirski, Daniel Ioniță
FLANKS Policy Brief – How to Deal with the Information Warfare Challenge in the Black Sea Region
The aim of this policy brief is to examine how countries in the Black Sea Region (BSR) should deal with the new challenge posed by Russia’s use of various information-related instruments and how the situation in the information sphere in the area should be dealt with by regional actors and other players with stakes in this region. This material presents the most important findings and conclusions presented in more detail in the FLANKS Working Paper Information Warfare and Information Operations in the Black Sea Area prepared jointly by members of the FLANKS project.
Authors: Alina Bârgăoanu, Jakub Godzimirski, Daniel Ioniță
A comprehensive material on the protracted conflicts located in the strategically important area of the Black Sea, within the sovereign territories of the newly independent republics following the dissolution of USSR: Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh), Georgia (Abkhazia and South Ossetia), Republic of Moldova (Transnistria) and, more recently, Ukraine (the so-called ‘people’s republics’ of Donetsk and Lugansk). The author proposes answers to what Russia wants when maintain and using frozen conflicts and presents options for reintegration of separatist regions in some cases.
Author: Dan Dungaciu
FLANKS Policy Brief – Russia and Frozen Conflicts in the Black Sea Region
This policy brief examines the role frozen conflicts play in Russian policy towards the Black Sea Region and measures that could be taken to limit the negative impact of this policy in the region. Its focus is on the four frozen conflicts existing in the post-Soviet space – Transnistria in Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, as well as on the more recent conflict in Eastern Ukraine that has many features characteristic of frozen conflicts.
This material presents the most important findings and conclusions presented in more detail in the FLANKS Working Paper The tail wagging the dog. Frozen conflicts – the precursors of trouble to come prepared by members of the FLANKS project.
Authors: Dan Dungaciu, Jakub Godzimirski
The study analyzes the evolution of the military capabilities of the Russian Federation in the Black Sea area, highlights the strategic importance of the Crimean peninsula in the Russian defensive system and presents the role of the Black Sea in Russian strategic thinking. The authors explain how deployed capabilities have become not only a platform for interdiction in the region (AntiAccess/AreaDenial – A2/AD), but also one of force in the Middle East and North Africa, by virtue of the historical obsession with access to warm seas. The study also analyzes the negative impact of the militarization of the Black Sea on trade and freedom of navigation, in an area with important energy resources and gas pipelines for the whole of Europe. To address these complex challenges, a unified strategic approach by NATO is needed, from the north, from the Barents Sea and the Kola Peninsula, to the south, the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.
Authors: Leonardo Dinu, George Scutaru
FLANKS Policy Brief The Crimean Aircraft Carrier. Russian Federation Militarization of the Black Sea
This policy brief covers the security situation of the Black Sea region in which Russia has engaged in a strong militarization program of the Crimean Peninsula, becoming thus a “power projection platform”.
The material presents the most important findings and conclusions presented in more detail in the FLANKS Working Paper The Crimean Aircraft Carrier. Russian Federation Militarization of the Black Sea prepared jointly by members of the FLANKS project.
Author: Leonardo Dinu