Despite the dire situation on the eastern front, the Ukrainian army continues to bombard Crimea. Is that strategy sustainable?
As usual, Maria Zacharova was incensed when she addressed the assembled press. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman warned last Friday about an impending Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge. “Preparations are being made openly and with ostentatious bravado, with shameless support from the West,” said Zacharova, who immediately warned that any attack on the bridge is “doomed to failure.”
Ukrainian attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea have been a remarkable constant over the past two years. Since July 2022, Ukraine has regularly succeeded in destroying Russian military bases, ports and anti-aircraft installations in Crimea. In October 2023, Russia decided to withdraw its Black Sea Fleet to Novorossiysk, more than three hundred kilometers east. And the new ATACMS missiles, which America secretly delivered last month, were also deployed almost immediately in Crimea.
It may come as a surprise that Ukraine is deploying the new American weapons there. The Ukrainian army is losing ground in the Donetsk region today. Yet Tom Simoens, military expert at the Royal Military School, sees well-founded military reasons why Ukraine continues its attacks on Crimea. “Russia regularly launches ballistic missiles from Crimea,” said Simoens. ‘The Black Sea Fleet is a threat to Ukrainian port cities like Odessa, which are crucial to keep the economy going. Ukraine wants to keep that fleet away from there.’
There is also a practical dimension to the choice to deploy long-range missiles in Crimea, Simoens suspects. ‘ATACMS missiles work based on GPS coordinates. Because Crimea is a peninsula and part of the Black Sea is international waters, you can visualize it better. This is more difficult in places like Donetsk and Luhansk. There you almost need help from partisans to visualize the exact GPS coordinates of a target. Ukraine would currently benefit more from attacking military bases and headquarters in Donetsk, but that is simply much more difficult.’
Ukrainian intentions
For a long time, the Western side had doubts about Ukrainian intentions. The Crimean people never showed great enthusiasm about their participation in Ukraine as an independent state. After Russia annexed Crimea without a fight in 2014, the completely unprepared Ukrainian army was too busy with the war in eastern Ukraine to undertake military operations against the occupation in Crimea.
The Russian invasion put an end to that restraint. The days when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky openly offered to negotiate a ceasefire with Russia over Crimea are over. “Everything started with Crimea, and everything will end with Crimea,” Zelensky emphasized in August 2022.
Crimea is as much an obsession on the Ukrainian side as on the Russian side. It is no coincidence that Rustem Umyerov was appointed as Ukrainian Minister of Defense in September 2023. Umyerov had credentials as a solid anti-corruption administrator, but his origins undoubtedly also played a role: Umyerov is a Crimean Tatar, whose family returned to Crimea in 1989 after decades of exile in Uzbekistan.
Unconquerable?
In addition, the attacks on Crimea have a clear psychological impact. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 is Putin’s biggest – some say: only – major success of the past ten years. The annexation was celebrated in Russia by almost the entire population, and assured Putin’s popularity for years. The Kremlin sees the fact that Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the bridge that connects Crimea with Russia as extremely embarrassing and a threat to the legitimacy of the regime.
Crimea is seen by military experts as an almost unconquerable fortress. Especially in its current state, the Ukrainian army has no chance of reconquering the peninsula. If Ukraine continues to attack Crimea, this is mainly of psychological importance. ‘Crimea is relatively easy to isolate due to its location,’ says Simoens. ‘Psychologically that would be a huge defeat for Russia. The Kremlin constantly tells the population that they will intercept all Ukrainian missiles. If the Crimean Bridge were to be destroyed, it would be difficult to maintain.’
At the same time, a successful attack on the bridge that has already been attacked several times would not have a huge military impact, Simoens warns. ‘Supplies to the front are mainly carried out over land. Russia no longer needs the Crimean Bridge so much. If Ukraine succeeds in destroying that bridge, the Russian army will not suddenly come to a standstill.”
