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Please join the Atlantic Council for a public event, Enhancing security in the Black Sea: The future of security cooperation, on Wednesday, August 4, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. (EDT) via Zoom.

Since Moscow launched its war on Ukraine in 2014, NATO has taken substantial steps to bolster security for its eastern members, particularly with a stronger presence in the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. The NATO approach to security in the Baltic Sea has been comprehensive, as all NATO members in the region and other states recognize the dangers posed by a revisionist Kremlin. But NATO efforts along the southern flank, in the Black Sea region, are not as far along.

As recent events show—from Russian protests over the passage of a British naval vessel near Ukraine’s Crimean waters to the Kremlin’s naval buildup in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea—the region is increasingly under the spotlight. The Black Sea’s littoral NATO member states and their partners, Georgia and Ukraine, are facing an increasingly provocative Russian naval presence.

Please join us for a discussion of NATO’s role in the Black Sea region and what security cooperation among these states will look like in the future.

To participate, please register below. Once you have registered, you will receive a confirmation email with information on how to join via Zoom.

Welcome remarks

Leah Scheunemann
Deputy Director, Transatlantic Security Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
Atlantic Council

Featuring

Alton Buland
Director, South and Central Europe
US Department of Defense

Lasha Darsalia
First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia

Dr. Can Kasapoğlu
Director of Security and Defense Research
The Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM)

Ambassador Elena Poptodorova
Vice President
Atlantic Club of Bulgaria

Dr. Harlan Ullman
Senior Advisor; Chairman
Atlantic Council; The Killowen Group

Irina Zidaru
Director General for Strategic Affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania

Moderated by

Ambassador John Herbst
Director, Eurasia Center
Atlantic Council

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