Our strategic goal is to reach the Indian Ocean through the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan and Iran, bypassing the Suez Canal and the Bosphorus, said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnulin. By and large, this goal of Russia is not new, taking into account that even at the level of Putin, the importance of the North-South strategic route from St. Petersburg to Mumbai and the immediate effort towards its creation has been announced. It is important in the statement of the Russian Deputy Prime Minister that it is about bypassing Suez and Bosphorus, which probably means that these directions will become “impassable” in the coming years.
The Suez Canal already is, in essence, given the situation Yemen’s Houthis have created in the Red Sea by blocking the Bab el Mandeb Strait. However, according to everything, the crisis will not stop there and has a tendency to deepen. The circumstance of bypassing the Bosphorus is even more remarkable. This probably means that the Russian Deputy Prime Minister is announcing a major collapse of the Black Sea region and serious logistical transformations. In any case, the speaking of the Russian official essentially suggests that Moscow is at least considering this development of events and is perhaps even preparing to stimulate these developments. By and large, this is also not unexpected, because the “package” of the Ukrainian war cannot bypass the Black Sea, and moreover, the Black Sea is a key component of it for both Russia and NATO.
The behavior of Turkey, which is a NATO member on the one hand, and has built a certain mechanism of agreements with Russia on the other hand, will naturally be key here. And all of these are serious issues for Armenia, because it refers to the northwest gate of the Caucasian region, such as the Black Sea basin, especially considering the fact that these processes will inevitably bring the issue of Georgia to the forefront. In that sense, the region is not only not close to any regime of real, practical peace, but in fact, perhaps, it is just approaching the peak of geopolitical confrontation.
