Every year, some 150 million tons of Russia's crude and petroleum products pass through the Straits of Bosphorus waterway. By that I refer to that section of the Bosphorus River, which bisects the city of Istanbul (population 15 million). The Bosphorus Strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara & the Aegean Sea - i.e., the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. All these names mean squat to the vast majority of geographically challenged Americans, right? But freedom to navigate these Turkish waters is absolutely vital to Russia's economic interests. Putin played with fire when he started this mess by detaining commercial ships flying the Turkish flag, thereby dragging commercial interests into his military machinations.
I've been fortunate enough to spend time in Istanbul, including a day spent taking a ferry through the Bosphorus Strait and up & down the river. It is striking to be on a waterway where one shore is in Europe and the other in Asia. The internationally vital waterway was jammed with shipping. For example:
Reduced visibility due to poor weather in the winter frequently requires maritime officials to shut the Bosphorus, disrupting the flow of Russian oil and grain to world markets.
http://www.ajot.com/news/fog-halts-shipping-traffic-at-turkeys-bosphorus-strait
The Bosphorus (/ˈbɒsfərəs/) or Bosporus (/ˈbɒspərəs/; Ancient Greek: ?ό??????, Bósporos; Turkish: Boğaziçi) is a natural strait and internationally-significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey that forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey. The world's narrowest strait used for international navigation, the Bosporus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and, by extension, via the Dardanelles, the Aegean, and Mediterranean Seas.
As part of the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosphorus has always been of great importance from a commercial and military point of view, and remains strategically important today. It is a major sea access route for numerous countries, including Russia and Ukraine. Control over it has been an objective of a number of hostilities in modern history, notably the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli in the course of World War I.
Turkey joined NATO in 1952, thus affording its straits even more strategic importance as a commercial and military waterway.
In more recent years, the Turkish Straits have become particularly important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as Novorossyisk, is exported by tankers primarily to western Europe and the U.S. via the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles straits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosphorus
= new reply since forum marked as read
