The Caspian Sea, though closed and far from the Ukrainian theater, is a strategic and logistical asset to the Russian Navy that serves as a missile launch site and troop reservoir. With about twenty small buildings, it contains a few warships, corvettes, patrol boats and other coastal buildings. But it is, above all, useful for its long-range ballistic missile attack capability.

“It’s not big in terms of the Navy, but they do fire support work,” explains Igor Delano, deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory and an expert on the Russian Navy. Capt. Eric Lavald, a spokesman for the French navy, analyzed the Russian intervention in Syria since 2015 and the fact that the sea was “used to fire high-velocity missiles over long distances, a major strategic change”.

“A few years ago, the Caspian Sea was a kind of duck pond without much geo-strategic interest, and it now has some,” he adds. In addition, the Caspian Navy could provide buildings that could be transported to the Black Sea through a network of 5 marine canals built during Soviet times.