Paul Goble
Staunton,
December 5 – Two events reported today highlight a development few have been
paying much attention to: Moscow is moving quickly not just to be an important
littoral state on the Caspian but to be the paramount power from north to south
much as the Soviet Union was until its collapse in 1991.
On
the one hand, Turkmenistan became the first littoral state to ratify the
agreement on the delimitation of the sea, one that specifies the central Central
Caspian is for the free use of all the littoral states and where Russia’s
Caspian Flotilla is overwhelmingly dominant (casp-geo.ru/zapushhen-protsess-ratifikatsii-konventsii-o-pravovom-statuse-kaspijskogo-morya/).
And
on the other, Moscow’s Kommersant
reported the Russian military has vetoed plans to sell to Azerbaijan batteries
of shore rockets because of concerns such weapons systems could be used against
the ships of other nations, including Russia (kommersant.ru/doc/3820453 and meduza.io/news/2018/12/05/rossiya-otkazalas-postavlyat-azerbaydzhanu-beregovye-raketnye-kompleksy-iz-za-ugrozy-korablyam-na-kaspii).
That suggests that the recent build
up of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla, including the shift of its home base from
Astrakhan farther south to Kaspiysk in Daghestan and the expansion of marine units
that could be deployed against oil platforms or targets on land is part of a
general Moscow plan to ensure that the Caspian will once again be a Russian
lake.
For background on the rise of the
Caspian Flotilla, see this author’s articles in Jamestown’s EDM, including jamestown.org/program/caspian-flotilla-highlights-growing-international-role-of-russias-coastal-navy/,
jamestown.org/program/new-russian-naval-base-in-dagestan-assumes-more-menacing-dimension/, jamestown.org/program/moscow-shifts-flotilla-from-caspian-to-azov-sea-giving-it-a-new-offensive-capability/
and jamestown.org/program/russias-caspian-flotilla-dominant-at-sea-gains-new-shore-landing-capability/).
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