Protracted armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space and their impact on Black Sea security / [electronic resource] Ekaterina Klimenko

SIP1923

This paper is part of the Black Sea Regional Security Initiative, a project launched by SIPRI
in 2017 to provide independent data and analysis on security developments in the region and to
promote transparency around military issues. As well as this paper, the project will publish
Background Papers mapping the developments in each of the 6 Black Sea littoral states, and a paper
on the challenges in the region: Melvin, N. J., Rebuilding Collective Security in the Black Sea Region,
SIPRI Policy Paper no. 50 (SIPRI: Stockholm, Dec. 2018). The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
provided funding for the project.

The events of 2014 in Ukraine—the takeover of Crimea by Russia and the start of the internationalized civil war in the east of the country—have refocused attention on the problem of protracted conflicts in the territory of the former Soviet Union (the ‘post-Soviet space’). This paper provides background information on these conflicts, their current status and an analysis of how they influence the security dynamics around the Black Sea.?The protracted conflicts in the post-Soviet space have had a clear and profound impact on the Black Sea region’s security dynamics. First, they have led to an increase in military activities in the region. Second, the overlapping conflict-affected areas have generated a wide zone of instability stretching from Trans-Dniester, through eastern Ukraine and the Caucasus and into Turkey and the Middle East. Third, the conflicts are a significant obstacle to economic development in the breakaway regions themselves and their respective states.