Russian President Vladimir Putin’s vision of restoring Russia to its “rightful” place as a global power has long rested on dominating the Black Sea and projecting power in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. In the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin largely succeeded in that goal.
With the occupation of Abkhazia following a brief war in 2008, Russia gained control of roughly two-thirds of Georgia’s Black Sea coastline. In 2014, Russia illegally annexed the strategically important Crimean Peninsula, shifting the power balance in the Black Sea and increasing the Kremlin’s influence in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus.
Around the same time, in 2013, Russia established its Mediterranean Squadron, with its Black Sea Fleet mainly providing the necessary ships and logistics to gain a stronger foothold in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2015, the Russian military intervened in Syria and later began to support rebel commander Khalifa Haftar in the Libyan civil war. Since then, Russia has upgraded its previously modest Tartus naval base in Syria to accommodate larger ships, expanded its Hmeimim Air Base in Syria’s Latakia province and taken control of Libya’s Al Jufra Air Base — an important hub for the Kremlin’s Africa operations.