On 3 November 2026 Mariia presented insights from her PhD research at the 16th Maritime Security Dialogue: Strategy and Military Mobility in the North and the Baltic Sea, organised by Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP).
The discussion focused on matters of naval strategy and mobility adaptation in the High North/Arctic and the Baltic Sea, and what are the gaps in how we understand Russia’s evolving maritime activities and naval force posture in these regions.
Mariia contributed her assessment on the Kremlin’s evolving maritime posture in the Baltic Sea: the re-establishment of Leningrad Military District but also Trans Arctic Transport Corridor point that Russia is moving towards treating the Baltic and the Arctic as one North-Western strategic direction. Moscow appears to have concluded that a regional conflict is now a realistic prospect. For now, though, it has to keep tensions in the Baltic low, because its war economy depends heavily on the region’s ports and energy facilities. The rhetoric shifts between nuclear threats, grey-zone actions and an emphasis on freedom of navigation. That pattern is Russian deterrence par excellence: a continuous, cross-domain effort to shape the strategic environment, rather than a linear choice between dissuasion and escalation.
