Well, their main warm water port is in Sevastopol, on the Black Sea. Since they don't control the Turkish Straits (Bosporus/Sea of Marmara/Dardanelles), it behooves them to have forces in the eastern Mediterranean to at least be able to pressure the Turks on the other end. Even then they're still kinda bottled in since they don't control Gibraltar or the Suez Canal either. Even their other main ports in the Baltic, the Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Sea of Okhotsk, in addition to weather issues, don't open directly onto the oceans (other than the Arctic) and are subject to blockade and interdiction by a hostile power.
Unrestricted access to the open ocean has been a longstanding geopolitical issue for Russia, and they're still far away from attaining it. Barring drastic global warming (which could be an issue further down the line), I don't see them achieving it anytime soon.
Unrestricted access to the open ocean has been a longstanding geopolitical issue for Russia, and they're still far away from attaining it. Barring drastic global warming (which could be an issue further down the line), I don't see them achieving it anytime soon.
