SIPRI has expanded its research on security issues in the Black Sea region by launching a new series of publications. Each publication analyses a different issue or provides context to a current security dilemma in the region.
The wider Black Sea region—which brings together the littoral states plus neighbouring countries—is experiencing a rapidly shifting security environment that combines large-scale conventional military threats, internationalized civil wars and frozen conflicts, as well as weapons of mass destruction challenges. As such, a fragile set of states caught between the Euro-Atlantic community, on the one hand, and Russia and its allies, on the other, has emerged as a key interface between the two security communities.
The series of publications includes two Policy Papers: on nuclear security in the Black Sea Region and on rebuilding collective security. Special attention has been paid to frozen conflicts in the region, with an Insights paper focused on protracted armed conflicts such as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The series also contains six background papers mapping the military developments in each of the Black Sea littoral states (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine). Each of these states has intensified efforts to build up their military potential after Russia’s takeover of Crimea and the start of the internationalized civil war in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
- Click here to view the full list of SIPRI publications on Black Sea security.
- Click here to read more about SIPRI’s engagement with Black Sea security issues.
- Click here to read a SIPRI essay on key actions to reduce nuclear security risk in the Black Sea region.