Russia is Preparing for War at Sea. Are We?

A week or two ago, I wrote about a new interview with Nikolai Patrushev - one of the most powerful and influential figures in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

A former KGB officer, Patrushev succeeded Putin as Director of the FSB in 1999 before serving for sixteen years as Secretary of Russia’s Security Council. Although he no longer holds that post, he remains one of the Kremlin’s most important strategic thinkers, and his public remarks deserve close attention.

One theme in the interview stood out above all others: the sea.

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the continuing pressure on shipping in the Red Sea and the vulnerability of other maritime choke-points have all served timely reminders that sea lanes underpin not only the global economy but the prosperity, security and resilience of individual states as well.

It is little surprise, then, that Britain has spent recent weeks debating the growing strains on the Royal Navy, the exposure of undersea cables and pipelines and the risks facing the maritime networks on which modern economies depend.

Some 80 per cent of world trade by volume and roughly three-quarters by value is transported by sea; food, fuel, manufactured goods, critical minerals and countless other products move across the world’s oceans every day.

When routes are disrupted - whether in the Red Sea, the Black Sea or elsewhere - the consequences are felt far beyond the immediate conflict, with higher prices, longer supply chains and growing geopolitical tensions.

It is therefore worth paying close attention to how thinking is evolving in Russia about the sea - something that is easy to miss given the dominance of the war in Ukraine.

Patrushev’s remarks though are about far more than ships, ports and naval strategy; in fact, they offer one of the clearest windows yet into how the Kremlin believes the next confrontation with the West will be fought, why Russia continues to invest so heavily in maritime power despite the immense costs of the war in Ukraine, and why history, geography and even centuries-old maps have become instruments of state strategy.

What follows is not really about Russia’s navy. It is about how the Kremlin thinks. And that is something worth understanding. I hope you’ll agree it gives much food for thought.