Florian OLTEANU, PhD^

Abstract. The Region of Caucasus represents a portion of territory between Caspian and Black Sea, where are located Caucasus Mountains, with the highest point on Elbrus (5,642 m) where according to the legend, the titan Prometheus was enchained at the order of Zeus, after he had given the fire to the mortals. He had to support the attack of the eagle of Zeus which had eaten daily portions of his liver (the liver regenerated during the night), until Herakles killed with some of his arrows the eagle and Prometheus went in the Underworld. This legend remembers the status of the Region of Caucasus where the conflict is a daily reality.

Key words: North Caucasus, South Caucasus, conflicts, USSR, Russian Federation, NATO

In the last period, USA tried to counterattack the politics of the EU and Russian Federation playing ”the energy card”¹, consolidating the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipe for blocking the Baku – Constanţa – Trieste pipe, the European project, having a strategically advance in front of the Russian Federation².

In May 2015, the Russian Federation has engaged 12,000 soldiers and 250 fighters into new manoeuvres conducted in Western, Central and Southern Russia. In the autumn of 2015, in the Urals, in both the European and the Asian sides, Russian Federation initiated an exercise in which they were involved 95,000 troops.

In August 2016, the Russian Federation has initiated extensive military manoeuvres in the Black Sea (15 ships of the Black Sea Fleet) and Caspian (10 ships of the Fleet Caspian), ”in order to check the level of combat readiness of the Russian Armed Forces” according to news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti. There were involved 4,000 soldiers and 300 units of military equipment under both Russian fleet³.

These are the responses of the Russian Federation to the NATO manoeuvres on the Baltic Sea and on the Black Sea, in 2014 and 2016 and to the NATO attempts to create military structures with human and technical resources at the Eastern frontier of the Alliance, considered by the Russians as being ”to close to the Russian soil”.