Putin and the Five Seas War

A tv programme

Written by

Thomas Johnson

Directed by

Thomas Johnson

Produced by

Artline Films

Leading French distributor

ARTE France

Production year2025

Programme formatOne-off

GenresDocumentary

Runtime 52 min

Synopsis

Since coming to power, Vladimir Putin has been pursuing a goal that is as ambitious as it is little known in the West—one inherited from Russia’s previous empires, first the Tsarist and then the Soviet: to link together and control the “five seas” at Russia’s borders—the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, Caspian, Baltic, and White Seas—in order to establish his country’s maritime power while consolidating its influence in Europe and Asia. This project, established by Tsar Peter the Great as early as the late 17th century, led in 2008 to the attack on Georgia by Russian troops, who continue to be stationed in the country in support of the separatists in South Ossetia and then Abkhazia, discreetly encroaching on portions of the territories beyond the front line. The large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 served the same objectives. It enabled Putin to seize the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov after three months of systematic bombardment. The port of Odessa, which is still holding out, is another priority target. The 2014 occupation of Crimea, as well as the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict—which flared up again in 2020 between the former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with Russia acting as a highly self-serving mediator—are part of the same strategy.

This documentary rigorously explores the contours of an imperial project that Europe failed to recognize, drawing on analyses by various journalists, political scientists, Russian opposition figures, and diplomats, backed by archival footage and on-the-ground reports—particularly in the Baltic states, which know they are on the front lines, and in Tbilisi, where citizen opposition to the pro-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, the country’s “strongman,” is beginning to wane after months of fruitless protests. Combining brutal nationalism with economic greed, the man who promised to restore Russian power thus turns every methodically orchestrated crisis into a new lever to secure control over the “five seas.”