Galip Dalay began by warning that Western focus on Ukraine has obscured the wider region’s agency. He argued that the Cold War–style emphasis on great-power projection—exemplified by Russia’s attempts to exclude other actors from the Black Sea—undermines the principle of regional ownership that underpins sustainable order. Moscow’s two decades of naval expansion and its denial of littoral states’ agency have in fact provoked complementary trends: a drive towards deeper European political and economic integration among coastal states, and renewed interest in small-scale cooperation projects, such as trilateral initiatives between Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. For Dalay, Ukraine must remain a Black Sea power if it is to prevent a Russian monopoly; without Ukrainian naval capability, he cautioned, Russia will effectively transform the basin into its own “inland sea” and project influence into the global South via grain diplomacy and normative agendas.
