Turkey does have some recent history of "balancing" with Russia, but I'm not convinced its decisions on the Straits are an example of that. My understanding is that under the Montreux Convention, Turkey closes it for everybody involved in the war or nobody, I don't believe it allows Turkey to block one side of a conflict's ships but not the other, unless it is a conflict in which Turkey itself is directly involved. (In a direct war between Russia and NATO, Turkey would probably just tear up the Convention anyway–but doing so in peacetime would likely be considered by Russia to be an act of war.)

In practice, however, closing the Straits has a much more negative impact on Russia than NATO, since the major NATO naval powers (US, UK, France) were never likely to send ships near Ukraine anyway, and as non-Black Sea states the Montreux Convention subjects them to special limits to which Black Sea states are not subject. In fact (according to some sources), the Straits are still officially open for the US/UK/French/etc navies, so long as they don't directly join the conflict – although I imagine they'd be rather hesitant to exercise that right at the moment, due to the risk Russia might interpret such an act as hostile.

If it is true they allowed some Russian ships through before closing it–that could have been simply the slowness of government decision making, plus the legal complexities involved, rather than a deliberate "balancing" act.

If anything, I think this conflict has caused Turkey to turn away from the "balancing" and move more firmly into the NATO column. Reminding NATO of their value helps silence the ongoing "can we expel Turkey?" debate, refusing to do so would have given it more steam. Turkey has been selling its TB2 drones to Ukraine, which Ukraine has been using to great effect against Russia – not a very good example of "balancing". Ukraine's successful use of Turkish drones is very helpful to Turkey, because it gives them more information on how they perform in an actual conflict (which they already had to some extent with the Syrian civil war, the KPP, etc, but Russia is a very different kind of adversary from the Syrian government or the Kurds), and also helps attract potential buyers.

I think we reached more or less the same conclusion.

I don't think the Barayktar has such a significant influence, but it could be a smart move from Ukraine to have add some difficulties to the balancing part of Turkeye.

Not sure about the last part though.

The UK did send a warship near Ukraine in 2021 (before the start of the current war), and the Russian military might have fired warning shots at it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57583363

> major NATO naval powers (US, UK, France) were never likely to send ships near Ukraine

Not only they were likely, they actually did that in 2020 and 2021, as a part of joint war games with Ukraine. According to what I read, some 30 ships participated.

What would NATO ships do there? "Balancing" would only make sense if NATO was directly a part of the conflict.

If NATO was directly part of the conflict, Turkey as a NATO member would be expected to be 100% on NATO's side, not "balancing" its allies against their enemy. If it was still trying to "balance" in that situation, it would either stop real fast or else end up expelled from NATO. In an actual shooting Russia-vs-NATO war, nobody would care about the legal niceties over whether NATO members can be expelled – the other members would just agree to do it, and the lawyers can debate the legality of it when the war is over.

> What would NATO ships do there?

Sail an unarmed NATO-flagged vessel to the Azovstal Steel Plant and evacuate troops?

Couldn't Romania do that without involving the Bosporus?

They could. But physical and economic proximity to Russia probably make it a tougher call than someone like the US.

Romania and Bulgaria only have access to the Black Sea. My understanding is that if a Romanian warship goes to a military exercise in the Mediterranean, then it won't be allowed to return, just like Russian ships can't.

Sources are inconsistent on this topic – some say Turkey has closed the Straits to all warships, others say it has only closed the ships to the official parties to the conflict, which is currently only Russia and Ukraine (arguably Belarus too, but that's irrelevant to this, since as a landlocked state they have no navy), and that other naval ships, including Bulgarian and Romanian, are still allowed through, so long as they don't actively join the war. I'm not entirely sure which set of sources are right, but I suspect the sources claiming a narrower closure are more likely to be correct.

Putting that aside, even the official parties to the war are allowed through the straits to return their ships to their home ports (unless Turkey is directly involved in the war, in which case Turkey can block all enemy vessels, even those returning to their home port). Since the only coastline and naval bases of Bulgaria and Romania are on the Black Sea, that rule covers their entire navies. It only really disadvantages Russia, since Russia is the only Black Sea state (other than Turkey) with naval bases outside of the Black Sea. It means Russia can't send reinforcements to the Black Sea from their Pacific, Baltic or Arctic fleets.

In a scenario in which Romania or Bulgaria actively joined the war, it would be a direct Russia-NATO war, including Turkey. In such a dire scenario, Turkey would likely announce the unilateral suspension of the Montreux Convention for the duration of the war, and allow NATO warships unlimited passage. Russia would consider such a unilateral suspension of the Convention to be an act of war, but in such a scenario Turkey and Russia would already be at war anyway.

> In time of war, Turkey not being belligerent, warships shall enjoy complete freedom of transit and navigation through the Straits under the same conditions as those laid down in Articles 10 to 18.

> Vessels of war belonging to belligerent Powers shall not, however, pass through the Straits except in cases arising out of the application of Article 25 of the present Convention [no longer applicable] , and in cases of assistance rendered to a State victim of aggression in virtue of a treaty of mutual assistance binding Turkey, concluded within the framework of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and registered and published in accordance with the provisions of Article 18 of the Covenant. https://timinhonolulu.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/montreaux-...

So basically, if (a) Turkey declares that there's a war and (b) Turkey is not a party to that war, then (c) Turkey is authorized to close the straits to warships of belligerent parties.

There's some exceptions in there about ships returning to their base, but it'd be a pretty big loss of face for the Russians to beg Turkey to agree that a sudden rebasing of ships qualified.

Isn’t there a Danube Convention? Couldn’t Romania retaliate now that USSR is no longer party?

It's complicated. Russia is not part of that convention, as can be seen on the dedicated wiki page [1], but since the occupation of the Snakes Island by the Russians earlier during the war the "exit area" just outside Danube's Delta is, de facto, controlled by the Russian Navy (barring an Ukrainian cruise-missile or two).

I'm Romanian, I live in Romania (Bucharest), so as I'm geographically close to this I've been following this particular Danube issue closer than the others, but the thing is that the situation on the ground is still pretty muddled. For example, just as the war started the Romanian authorities had suspended commercial navigation on the Chilia Danube Delta Branch, the one on which the Romanian-Ukrainian border is situated, for fear of Russian bombs. Presumably the navigation has been allowed to resume, but nothing official has been made public in the Romanian mainstream press, the only related news was something about the Ukrainian authorities being unhappy with us (Romanians) asking for navigation-related customs taxes that were seen as too high, so I assumed that commercial navigation had, in fact, resumed.

There was also our prime-minister meeting with the Bulgarian side (with which we share hundreds of kms of the Danube) and making a statement afterwards about how the Danube should be made easier to navigate (i.e. a strong hint made to the European Union to send us money to do that). If that indeed were to happen (i.e. if the Danube would be made easier to navigate) then the Ukrainians would be able to send a large part of their exports to Central and even Western Europe (via the Danube-Mainz-Rhine canal) via fluvial ships, at a fraction of the cost they now have to pay doing that using rail and road-transport. That's why (among other things) the Russians have set their eyes so strongly on the Budjak region (i.e. the Ukrainian region just North of the Danube's Delta) and that's why they have bombarded this bridge [2] that leads to that region at least three times in the last few weeks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_for_t...

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pidyomnyy+Mist/@46.0749075...

Read about Montreux Convention. Ships are allowed to return to their home ports.