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It seems Russia is starting a naval exercise in various areas of international waters in the Black Sea. Ignoring questions of legality and legitimacy - I have heard it said that these actions may mean an effective naval blockade of Ukrainian ports (I can't access the whole story either in that link... paywall). Now, the thing is, I've also gotten a hold of this map of the planned areas for the exercise:

enter image description here

Assuming this map is valid (and correct me if it isn't) - What's the problem for ships to sail to Western Ukraine by going further west, then North to Odessa, then further East; and to Eastern Ukraine through the corridor between the regions of the exercise? It looks like a 15 Km-wide corridor or so. Is it too dangerous for civilian traffic to get through? I'm no seafaring expert so I can't tell.

Also - how common or uncommon are these kinds of exercises, which hinder travel to coastal areas of states other than the exercising one?

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    You can check a service like marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:33.4/centery:42.6/zoom:4 and compare traffic before and after.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Feb 13, 2022 at 8:46
  • @Trilarion: That's a neat website, but it looks like you need to pay them to view the past / replay things.
    – einpoklum
    Commented Feb 13, 2022 at 15:17
  • Voting to close at it appears to be speculation.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    Commented Feb 15, 2022 at 17:24
  • @ohwilleke: What's speculative about the question?
    – einpoklum
    Commented Feb 15, 2022 at 18:16
  • @einpoklum An answer depends upon choices that Russia's Navy will make in the future that can't be known now.
    – ohwilleke ♦
    Commented Feb 15, 2022 at 18:22

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Well, as of 2022-02-16, there seems to be quite a lot of ongoing marine traffic to/from Western Ukraine at least, mostly close to the shore. There is also traffic through the straights entering the Azov sea. Most of it goes to/from Rostov-on-Don, but it looks like some of it is visits Mariupol.

While this is not a comparative analysis, it is evidence that Ukraine is not blockaded.

I saw a similar image a couple of days ago when I checked. Thanks, @trilarion, for the link.

enter image description here

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  • There are a few "empty" areas like western of Sevastopol or the south eastern part of the Black Sea, but that might simply be because there may not much interest in crossing these areas instead of them being blocked by somebody.
    – NoDataDumpNoContribution
    Commented Feb 16, 2022 at 19:59
  • @Trilarion: Yes, but note that Sevastopol is in Russia (well, Crimea, but still). A more interesting example is how the Ukranian side of the Northern coast of the Azov sea is seeing very little traffic relative to Rostov-on-Don.
    – einpoklum
    Commented Feb 19, 2022 at 22:36

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