On March 25th, The Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research (SETA) from Turkey and the New Strategy Center have organized an online round table on the topic of the war in Ukraine and its impact on the Black Sea region. „The War in Ukraine. Consequences for the Security of the Black Sea Region” brought together experts from Romania, Turkey, Georgia and Bulgaria. The speakers were MG (Ret.) Leonardo Dinu, member of the Scientific Council of the New Strategy Center, Amb. Valeri Chechelashvili, GSAC Executive Board Member, Former Minister of Finance, Former Vice Foreign Minister, Former Secretary-General of BSEC – Georgia, Dr. Murat Aslan, Faculty Member at İstanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Researcher at SETA, Turkey and Mr. Martin Sokolov, Centre for National Security and Defence Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria. Amb. Doru Costea, member of the Scientific Council of the New Strategy Center, presented the conclusions of the discussion and the debated was moderated by Dr. Yücel Acer, Faculty Member at Yıldırım Beyazıt University, Researcher at SETA, Turkey.
The debate considered the consequences of the war on the security and stability in the Black Sea area and possible future developments, highlighting the disruptive actions of the Russian Federation and the implications that these developments could have in other areas, such as the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East or North Africa, areas where Russian involvement is important. The experts stressed that the war outweighs, in political and economic terms, the Black Sea region, thus affecting Europe’s security with global economic reverberations, such as energy and food. From a military point of view, one of the questions is whether Russia will still have the capacity to conquer Odessa and reach the Danube mouths, thus eliminating Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, or will settle for a land corridor between Donbas and Crimea, as the situation on the ground shows at the moment.