Name: How central control of the Black Sea is in Russia's war against Ukraine | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-01-02T17:01:09.000Z
Duration: 7 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

After almost four years following the start of Russia's full scale war against Ukraine, the waters of the Black Sea are believed to be the most heavily mined in the world.

Downed missiles and drones also pose a threat to ships and the civilians living along Ukraine's beaches.

DW's Nick Conley put out to sea with a Ukrainian naval crew trawling for an explosive catch.

We're heading out into the open sea from Odessa, Ukraine's last major port not occupied by Russia.

We can't show you the city or the port behind us.

Odessa is already under near daily Russian attack.

Ukrainian military worries that any detail shown here could help direct those Russian strikes.

This is currently one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world.

It is also because of downed missiles, downed drones, and

trying to find those drones, drones and destroy them before they do any damage.

Civilian ships, people of the beaches is the task for these Iranian sort of units today.

The team has just received the coordinates of an unidentified object sighted on the sea floor.

They're sending a drone rather than a diver to investigate.

Sea Fox is ready to launch and we're ready as well.

It looks like a piece of missile fuselage.

You can see it's already covered with shells.

But we'll only be able to tell if it's still dangerous, whether there's still explosives in here once we get the footage from the other camera.

Today's catch doesn't need to be destroyed immediately.

Experts back on land will review the footage and decide what to do.

If you spend a few days in Odessa, you'll notice just how many air alerts we have here, how much there is flying over the city.

The Black Sea is the most heavily mined sea in the world right now.

Sometimes though, a mine or a downed missile has to be destroyed in a hurry.

If it's a threat to a shipping lane, divers go down to perform a controlled detonation.

The crew tell us they sometimes have to sacrifice a drone to carry out the kamikaze mission.

But technology has yet to replace humans completely.

Some missions still require divers and their know how.

In spite of the risks, the danger for these divers isn't just from the mines and the missiles underwater.

Right now, the divers are having to wait because there is essentially a traffic jam out at sea.

Many of the foreign ships heading for the port of Odessa are simply choosing to ignore the warnings that Demining is going on in this part of the sea and are coming too close for the divers to do their job.

This time it's a false alarm, nothing dangerous, just some scrap metal.

Crew have to respond to any credible report of an unidentified object.

Often enough that ends up being a fridge or other rubbish brought in by the currents.

When they do find explosives, it's not just this war's mines they're clearing up.

If we're still finding mines from World War II and sometimes even from World War I, that tells you how many years of work we have ahead of us.

If the war were to end tomorrow, the crew tell us they'd likely still have another 8 to 10 years work ahead of them to clear the seas off Odessa.

With no end to the war in sight, these crews and their work are here to stay.

She is a senior research fellow with the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House and joins us from Oxford.

Natalie, we've just seen how contested and dangerous the waters off Odessa have been become.

How central is control of the Black Sea for the parties in this war?

It is the key theater of war at the moment.

And we have to remember Russia's war on Ukraine actually started with the annexation of Crimea.

Russia felt that it absolutely has to own the peninsula which is the seat of its Black Sea fleet.

And it is also directly tied to Russia's global ambitions.

This is a kilo logistical hub for Russia for its operations beyond the region, particularly was essential for its operations in Syria and then to Africa.

So Russia's global ambitions are tied to the control of the Black Sea and the victory in Ukraine is directly linked to this.

And I would say part of the reason why Russia is not agreeing to a ceasefire or to ending of this war is because it feels that its objectives around controlling the sea have not yet been achieved.

Now, it is also essential for Ukraine because if Ukraine loses its access to the Black Sea, it will be a huge impact on its viability as a state and on its economy.

So Ukraine is fighting very much to defend its coast and it has been extremely successful.

In fact, Russia was defeated at sea and this is also one of the reasons why it wants to regain its positions.

And another key player out of all the other literal states is, of course, Turkey, which is also interested in keeping its positions in the Black Sea.

Its fleet now is one of the largest and it is considered to be the gatekeeper of the Black Sea because it controls access to the straits.

So the situation that allowed Ukraine to mount that effective asymmetric campaign against Russian fleet was the fact that the straits are closed to belligerent vessels and Russia cannot reinforce its fleet at the moment.

Now civilian shipping continues on the Black Sea despite the risks.

From a security perspective, how difficult is it to keep trade moving there while avoiding escalation at sea?

As your reporter said, it is one of the most dangerous bodies of water.

It is essential for Ukraine to keep civilian shipping because Ukraine, as you know, is one of the largest exporter of wheat.

And so it has been assured at the moment that the export continues.

But this continuous attacks make it very difficult.

So everybody except Russia at the moment are interested in keeping the trade routes open.

And it is, as I said, absolutely essential for Ukraine.

However, Black Sea has also become, you know, the area where Russia's shadow fleet is operating.

So there is an increasing tit for tat at the moment.

In the last two months, as Ukraine intensified its attacks on the shadow fleet because they are used to basically avoid Western sanctions, Russia is retaliating.

There's been a lot of attack on Odessa and surrounding ports that are mainly used for exports.

Oil, wheat, and it is also essential for the global food security.

So this is a key area not only for military confrontation, but

also how the for the regional disruption potentially.