Ukraine Puts Crimea on Notice

Even the Russian Command HQ is not a safe place to hide

Firefighters extinguishing a fire in a building at night. (Representative image — Licensed by author)

Russian military installations and weapons systems, as well as warehouses in Crimea, are catching fire almost every day or every other day. With so many things happening across the Ukraine-Russia frontline, it becomes hard to notice anything that happens deep inside Russian-occupied territory.

However, what is happening in Crimea, especially in the last four weeks, has a ton of implications for what will happen in the future. There is a long list of things Ukraine has done since August. I consider the following events to be the ones that we need to take a look at:

• Ukraine captured at least two oil rigs in the Black Sea that doubled as Russia’s surveillance outposts.
• Two S-400 systems were destroyed.
• A Russian garrison in South Crimea was raided by Ukrainian special forces.
• Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol was attacked, destroying a submarine and a landing ship.
• Ukraine unilaterally established a grain corridor. The vessel Aroyat “left the port Chornomorsk after loading 17,600 metric tons of Ukrainian wheat for Egypt,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, said on Twitter. This will be the second vessel to depart with grain from Chornomorsk sea port.
• Yesterday, the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters was hit by Ukrainian missiles.

The ISW reported the following events in its assessment yesterday. They had a full section dedicated for Crimea:

• Ukrainian forces conducted a series of drone and missile strikes targeting the Russian airfield near occupied Saky, Crimea, and may have damaged Russian aircraft. The Department of Strategic Communications of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that Ukrainian forces launched a combined attack on the Russian airfield near Saky (60km north of Sevastopol).
• Suspilne Crimea reported that sources in the Ukrainian…