Paul Goble
Staunton, May 23 – Before the collapse of the USSR, Moscow considered the Caspian to be a Russian lake and its Caspian Flotilla was the unchallenged naval force there, but in the years since, other littoral states have built up their navies more rapidly than the Russian Federation has (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/russia-not-keeping-up-with-naval-build.html).
Now, both to defend their oil and gas platforms on that body of water and both shipping and pipeline routes across it, these other littoral states are increasingly engaged in exercises that often involve two of them – but not Russia – and even outside powers like Turkey (casp-geo.ru/azerbajdzhan-stal-chlenom-tsentra-nato-po-morskoj-bezopasnosti/ and mod.gov.az/ru/news/azerbajdzhan-prinyat-v-chleny-centra-sovershenstvovaniya-morskoj-bezopasnosti-54060.html).
All this points to the rise of naval competition in the Caspian, a development historically unprecedented there and one that pro-Moscow commentators are at pains to dismiss as an effort by the West to create a problem for Moscow where one at present supposedly does not exist (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2025-05-22--72451-80467).
Open clashes between Russia and the other littoral states are indeed unlikely in the short term, but because of the build up of naval power by the others, Moscow can no longer act without regard to these other forces as it routinely did in the past. (On the naval building programs of the others, see jamestown.org/program/russias-caspian-flotilla-no-longer-only-force-that-matters-there/, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/05/kazakhstan-increasingly-preparing-its.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/05/azerbaijan-expanding-naval-cooperation.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/iran-launches-new-flagship-for-its.html.)
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