NATO Black Sea mission

Romania calls for NATO Black Sea mission

The plea comes as Romania faces mounting aerial and maritime security threats from Russia, Defense Minister Radu Miruță says.

By Victor Jack

NATO should shift counter-drone equipment, radars and air defense missiles to the Black Sea as part of a new allied mission to deter Russia, Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruță told POLITICO.

“The Black Sea is … where the Russians are having a huge interest,” he said in an interview at the margins of the Munich Security Conference. “It’s a sea that should be protected, and it's a sea where Romania is very interested [for NATO] to offer protection.”

Last year, NATO launched two missions aimed at tackling growing subsea cable-cutting incidents and bolstering the alliance’s vulnerable air defenses, dubbed Baltic Sentry and Eastern Sentry. Last week, it also launched Arctic Sentry — largely to placate Donald Trump after he threatened to annex Greenland, in part citing security threats to the island.

The alliance should now launch a similar Black Sea Sentry scheme, Miruță said, as Bucharest struggles to respond to Russia’s drone warfare in neighboring Ukraine. 

In response to the call, a NATO official told POLITICO that the alliance would “continue to adapt” its Eastern Sentry mission in response to “reckless violations of ... airspace including in Romania.” NATO is “working with Romania to strengthen this line of effort even further,” they added.

The country, which shares a 650-kilometer border with Ukraine, has seen over a dozen drone incursions since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In response, Bucharest last year changed its laws on downing drones, shifted troops to the border and bought a new American Merops anti-drone system — but the violations are continuing.

“We are seeing drones coming over the Black Sea to Ukraine,” Miruță said, and “activity … is increasing ... It’s difficult to scan 24 hours per day this entire land. We are scanning everything, but we are focusing our resources especially in the areas where the population is living.”

Given that Ukraine lies on the other bank of the Danube River from Romania, that makes it “difficult for the Romanian army to decide if a drone that is coming ... will stop there or not.”

There are also broader merits to a Black Sea mission.

While NATO’s Eastern Sentry already ostensibly covers Romania’s airspace, the Russian threat extends beyond aerial incursions to the sea as well, according to Oana Popescu-Zamfir, director of the Bucharest-based GlobalFocus Center security think tank.

Moscow’s presence in the Black Sea is exposing a “huge deficit” in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, she said. Meanwhile, Romania’s Neptun Deep gas project, which is set to come online next year, raises the “increasing prospect of hybrid activity” by Russia, she said.

As a result, “we … need to be prepared for any sort of acts of sabotage,” Popescu-Zamfir said, as well as GPS jamming and suspicious behavior from Russian vessels. In response, NATO could deploy underwater drones, enhance satellite detection and centralize its monitoring of the region.

That's a call Miruță is backing. “I'm asking with my entire voice to have a fair distribution over the entire eastern flank from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea,” he said, arguing a Black Sea Sentry program could involve shifting more “counter drones, radars, air missiles” and other allied equipment to the area.

However, some NATO allies are skeptical, worrying that the idea may stretch resources. “Due to the overstretched force model I do not see a strong appetite for it,” said one NATO diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely on the sensitive matter.

But for Miruță, it's a question of burden sharing. “There are some resources concentrated in the Baltic Sea … but it's also needed in the Black Sea,” he said, “so let's distribute in a fair way the resources in between these two points.”