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Among the arguments in favor of the formation of a commonwealth of states between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas (the region of the Eastern European «Intermarium» or «Three Seas»), there are primarily economic, political, security, etc. However, the logic of such an association will be most comprehensive if we turn to the actual historical and geographical factors. Since it is geography and history that most convincingly testify that the space of the Intermarium is not only deeply integrated internally, but also designed to seamlessly fit into the context of pan-European geopolitical patterns.
The obvious consequence of the regional integration of the Intermarium will be, in particular, the restoration of submeridional («vertical») geographical mobility, which is most natural for our continent, in all its manifestations - people, ideas, goods, etc. After all, the Eastern European Intermarium is one of the organic projections of the historically main «north-south» axis of Europe.
For example, most of the large European rivers flow precisely from north to south or vice versa (Rhone, Rhine, Elbe, Oder, Vistula, Nieman, Dnipro, Don), being located mainly submeridionally. Only the Danube (except for the section between modern Budapest and Belgrade), the Western Dvina and some rivers of the extreme west of Europe (Seine, Loire, Pyrenees rivers) are mostly sub-latitudinal.
Intra-European geographical routes have historically also been mostly «vertical». Moreover, several axes are distinguished here along which cultural exchange took place and ethnic migrations periodically took place: western - Britain-Gallia-Pyrenees (Iberians, Picts, Celts, Suevi, Western Vikings); central - Baltic-Mediterranean (Celts, Cimbri, Teutons, Bastarni, Vandals, etc.); eastern - Scandinavia-Black Sea region (Balts, Thracians, Goths, Slavs, Eastern Vikings).
The first trans-European transport network known to science was the branched so-called the «amber route» that connected Northern and Southern Europe since pre-antique times. In fact, it was a whole system of trade routes by which goods (primarily amber) were transported from the coast of the North and Baltic seas to the Mediterranean countries - Italy, Greece, even Egypt. The ancient Central European «amber route» connected all of Europe in the system of three seas - the Baltic, Adriatic and Black. From the Baltic Sea, this route led from the Vistula to the Danube (via the Warta-Oder-Morava river). From the Danube, it flowed into the Black or Adriatic (via the Raba, Drava, Sava rivers), or even the Aegean (via the Moravian Balkan and Maritsa) seas. It was through the «amber» roads that the Germanic tribes conquered Central Europe. One group of them headed along the Elbe to the headwaters of the Rhine and Danube, and the other along the Vistula to the Danube.
There were also eastern branches of the «amber route» - from the rivers of the Baltic basin through the Dniester or Dnieper to the Black Sea. Eastern European routes determined the migration directions of Proto-Thracian, Proto-Slavic, Baltic and Germanic tribes in the respective territory, and often also defined the boundaries of their archaeological cultures. Later, in the early Middle Ages, on the basis of one of the eastern «amber» routes, a separate cultural and historical axis developed, the geographical «backbone» of the then Eastern Europe - the famous route «from the Varangians to the Greeks».
Perpendicularly, across the European «verticals», there were sub-latitudinal Eurasian «horizontals», along which various eastern influences and peoples - from (presumably) the Cimmerians to the Batian Mongols and Kalmyk-Oirats - advanced to our continent.
The meridional factor also appears in the history of Ukraine. Ukrainian state and ethnic territories are much longer from west to east than from north to south. Ukraine is much easier to «stretch» along the «east-west» axis than «south-north».
Therefore, nature and history clearly show us our greatest geopolitical vocation - to connect, «vertically sew» the southern countries of Eastern Europe with the northern ones, the North with the South. This, by the way, will fully correspond to the generally «vertical», submeridional, strategic «geometry» of Europe. And this is the best alternative to our permanent sprawl along the Eurasian sub-latitudinal «horizontal» between the West and the East.
In particular, today the situation around Ukraine is surprisingly reminiscent of the one that developed exactly four centuries ago, at the beginning of the Thirty Years War 1618-1648. Then, as now, we found ourselves in an international triangle - Poland (West), Moscow (East), Turkey (South). Regarding analogies with the first two, everything is clear - their modern «incarnations» are the EU and the Russian Federation. Both of these vectors are sublatitudinal, «horizontal». The Turkish vector can be compared with the current American one: the greatest - compared to the other two - civilizational difference from Ukraine, active military influence from the south - through the Black Sea and the Balkans. This vector is submeridional, «vertical».
However, in the 17th century soon a fourth vector appears - north, i.e. also «vertical». Then it was represented by Protestant countries that separated from the Catholic «pan-European space». It was the Protestant axis (Sweden - Northern Germany together with the Northern Netherlands - up to the Reformed Lithuania and Transylvania) that became the «pole of attraction», an alternative to the Catholic «old Europe», the eastern outpost of which was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And Ukraine almost immediately turned into a desirable ally of this then «new Europe» - let's remember not only the subsequent Swedish alliances of the Cossack state (the alliances of Khmelnytskyi with Karl X Gustav and George II Rakotsi of Semigorod and Mazepa - with Karl XII and the «northern» Polish king Stanislaw Leszczynski), as well as the participation of the Zaporozhians in the Thirty Years' War on the side of the anti-Habsburg bloc, Cromwell's famous letter to Khmelnytskyi, etc.
The «Northern» vector is necessary to harmonize and balance the influence of the other three. Most constructively, it can interact with the same submeridional «southern». Let us once again mention Sweden's cooperation with Ottoman Turkey in Ukrainian affairs. Moreover, Turkish-Swedish cooperation is a refuge for Mazepa, it is help to Orlyk and rebellious Zaporozhians from the south, it is Khanate Ukraine and Mazepa emigration at European courts. The Polish-Moscow «horizontal» interaction is the Andrusiv agreement and the division of Ukraine along its «heart», along the Dnieper River.
Structuring the geopolitical «environment» of Ukraine along the «North-South» axis is the most constructive from the point of view of our national interests and ensuring the integrity of the actual Ukrainian state space. Therefore, external alliances that make possible just such a «vertical» architecture of regional security are the most promising for Kyiv.
Of course, the proposed view of the problem is only a subjective attempt to understand the basic historical and geographical prerequisites for the unity of the Central and Eastern European space and its inclusion in the continental geopolitics. In the future, these questions will obviously require more detailed research attention.