The interesting thing is that Russia already has two ice free ports on the Western side of the country: Kaliningrad in the Baltics and Novorossisk in the Black Sea, just East of the Crimean peninsula. There's no real need for another port in Sevastopol. And on the Pacific they've got Vladivostok and much of the Kamchatka peninsula.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

iirc the Novorossisk port is kind of bad, right?

Regardless, Baltic Sea access isn't super great when you're entirely choked out by Denmark for access to the Atlantic. Same goes for Black Sea and access to the open seas - Turkey and arguably also Spain/UK block several times on the way.

The Pacific ones freeze over and are kind of blocked by Japan, essentially.

It's going to be interesting to see how much Russia's geopolitical position improves from rising global temperatures - if their pacific ports become ice-free, then that changes the game quite a bit.

[–] lud@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Regardless, Baltic Sea access isn't super great when you're entirely choked out by Denmark

Not only Denmark. Norway, Sweden and probably Germany could also shut down access if they wanted.

Norway and Germany couldn't do it very well alone though.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

That's true. Atlantic access via the Baltic Sea is on heavy lockdown from all sides.

Not to mention that Kaliningrad also is kind of cut off by land in a dire situation as well, making this even more of a struggle.

load more comments (4 replies)