A new analysis from War on the Rocks suggests Russia could adopt a strategy resembling the "Hormuz Playbook" to disrupt maritime traffic in the Baltic and Black Seas without deploying mines, blockades, or naval forces. The concept draws from recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, where drone attacks and subsequent insurance market reactions effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, reducing tanker transits from 56 to just seven vessels.
The playbook relies on asymmetric tactics—precision strikes against high-value commercial shipping combined with the cascading effect of skyrocketing war risk premiums and insurance exclusions. In the Baltic, Russia could target the Danish Straits, through which roughly 8% of global trade passes, while in the Black Sea it could focus on the Bosphorus choke point. The Kremlin's growing drone and missile capabilities, along with existing intelligence networks in both regions, make this threat credible.
NATO has not yet publicly assessed this specific scenario, but allied naval commanders have increasingly flagged the vulnerability of commercial shipping in European littoral zones. Baltic states and Romania have called for enhanced monitoring of shadow-fleet tankers, which often lack adequate insurance and could serve as triggers for broader market disruption. Moscow has given no official signal of intent to pursue this approach.
No specific budget allocations have been tied to this threat, but analysts note that replicating the Hormuz effect would cost Russia far less than maintaining a traditional naval blockade. Procurement timelines for Russian drones and anti-ship missiles remain unaffected by the current conflict in Ukraine, though Western sanctions continue to constrain precision-guided munition production.
Some maritime security experts caution that the "Hormuz Playbook" succeeded in the Gulf due to unique geographic and insurance market conditions that may not translate directly to the confined, NATO-patrolled Baltic or the heavily monitored Black Sea. War on the Rocks itself notes that Moscow's doctrine has historically favored direct kinetic confrontation over financial warfare, making a full replication of the Iran model uncertain.