On the occasion of the sinking of the Moskva, it is worth spending a moment thinking about how the Great Powers of the Black Sea waged naval war against one another in the 20th century, because Moskva is hardly the first modern warship to find her way to the bottom of the Pontus Euxinus.
For Russia, the Black Sea has long represented a problem that remains stunningly obvious today; it is a critical theater of naval operations, the control of which can threaten amphibious attacks along its coastlines as well as conduct or prevent blockades of trade from crucial ports. At the same time, the Black Sea is distant from Russia’s other major ports and is easy to cut off from support and resupply. Generally, this has meant that during wartime what happens in the Black Sea stays in the Black Sea.
