[BBC] Does crisis beckon in the Black Sea? Could Russia and Nato even come to blows?That - at least for now - is probably unlikely. But the recent seizure of two Ukrainian gunboats and a tug in the approaches to the Kerch Strait, by vessels of the Russian Border Guard, has inevitably brought security in the Black Sea to the forefront of Nato's agenda at their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
The Black Sea has long had strategic significance.
It was, after all, the theatre for a major conflict between the Western powers France and Great Britain and Imperial Russia in the mid-19th Century. During the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union's shortest route to Iran and the Middle East. Turkey - a Nato ally - stood astride the Black Sea's southern exit to the Mediterranean, facing Russia across the Black Sea to its the north.
For the Russians this was always seen as their "back yard". And the end of the Cold War and the break-up of the Soviet Union greatly complicated relationships.