The Seizure of Crimea – A Game Changer for the Black Sea Region

Abstract

1. The Black Sea is a traditional direction for Russian expansion. In fact, the first direction of expansion for the founder of the Russian Empire, Peter the Great, was to the South, to the shores of the Azov and Black seas, towards Crimea. Moscow, 'The Third Rome', was organically tempted to get closer geographically to the first two, meaning Constantinople and Rome, the warm seas, the Black and Mediterranean seas, not the frozen North.