The issue of strained relations between NATO and the Russian Federation has lasted for more than three decades, since the USSR disintegrated and Russia, the heart of this historical construction, inherited and rebooted the idea that it was destined to remain a great power. The course of its first 10 years, after calling itself the Russian Federation, was different from the other ex-Soviet states.

If for these states independence was perceived as a new beginning, Russia experienced independence as a state of fact dominated by uncertainty, through the weakening of state power, economic regression, to which was added the historical guilt of the loss of an empire. Russia had lost the Cold War after 45 years. We do not comment on the causes, they have been debated in many studies. What is important for the approach now is to understand the reasons why the risk of a West-Russia collision could occur in the Black Sea.