“Recapturing the Crimean Peninsula will be difficult, it will require a lot of time, people and materials. We can have no illusions about that, at least for now. The plan is ongoing and must be carried out discreetly, intelligently and without haste. If we give in to external pressure to try to end this war as soon as possible, we expose ourselves to circumstances that could be very counterproductive,” they explained to Reasonably unofficial sources from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
The moment when the rockets hit the bridge considered the “Gateway to Crimea”Photo: WillWest News / Profimedia Images
“Little by little, we showed that Russia is not invincible and that the Crimean Peninsula is not impregnable,” they added, Rador Radio Romania quotes.
In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has stepped up its offensive against Russian targets on the Peninsula. The latest attack took place yesterday in Djankoi, one of the key logistics centers for Kremlin troops occupying northern Crimea, where “a warehouse caught fire after the Ukrainian attack,” according to the Ukrainska Pravda daily.
For his part, the provincial head installed by Moscow, Sergei Aksionov, confirmed the incident but said it was due to “the remains of a downed missile that hit a warehouse”. The Russian Defense Ministry also confirmed that at around 13:00, its air defenses “shot down two Hrim-2 operational tactical missiles near Djankoi”.
On the other hand, the day before yesterday, the Ukrainian secret services reported that in August a commando unit “jet-skied” across one of the Black Sea straits to attack a Russian electronic warfare station in Crimea.
“A group of about 20 soldiers from the ‘Brotherhood’ Battalion carried out the mission, traveling 125 (nautical) miles across the sea to reach the Peninsula. Our first objective was an electronic warfare station so powerful that not even a compass could work 20 miles from the coast,” according to “Borghese,” the battalion commander who coordinated the action.
This previously unknown incursion is in addition to others that Kiev’s troops have carried out to establish the gradual recapture of Crimea, some taking advantage of the flooding of the Dnieper River after the destruction in June of the Kahovka dam, still in the hands of Russia, which caused an ecocide and the flooding of part of the city of Kherson.
Likewise, the alleged destruction of the Russian station would have served to undermine the Kremlin’s ability to intercept drone strikes, track British Storm Shadow missiles and Ukrainian Neptun cruise missiles that recently struck troops in Moscow.
Something that, on the other hand, explains the ease with which its missiles and drones managed to exhaust the Russian Black Sea fleet. On 13 September, they reached the dry docks at the Sevastopol Naval Base, destroying Minsk, a Ropucha-class landing craft, and severely damaging a KILO-class submarine.
The next day, its kamikaze maritime drones attacked the Samum hovercraft, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed. Also that day, a combination of drones and Neptun missiles attacked the Kremlin’s best air defense system, the S-400 Triumf, near Yevpatoria, destroying a launcher and radar, according to Ukrainian intelligence.
Moreover, on September 20, Ukraine attacked the command post of the Russian Black Sea Fleet near the village of Verhniosadove. On September 21, they carried out a coordinated attack with drones and missiles against the military airfield in Saki, and on the 22nd, with Storm Shadow missiles, they destroyed the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. In this latest operation, dubbed “Crab Trap”, Kyiv’s Special Operations Forces claim that “34 high-ranking Russian officers” were killed.
“It’s all part of a very elaborate plan that we cook on low heat. You have to go step by step”, sources from the Ministry of Defense explain to LA RAZÓN.
Is a ground invasion possible in the near future? “I cannot comment on this type of information, I can only say that Crimea is part of Ukraine”, these sources add, recalling that since the beginning of the conflict in 2014, the recovery of the Peninsula has been one of the key objectives of the Government in Kiev, without from which the conflict cannot end. Should that day come, the Zelenski government already has a planned 12-point plan for future reintegration.
The project, which was described in April by the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksii Danilov, involves changing the name of Sevastopol, where the Russian Navy has been based for more than 200 years, to “Object 6”, as he declared for “France 24”.
Among other things, the plan will also implement “tough measures” against Russian collaborators, depending on the degree of their assistance to Russia, for which they could be imprisoned, lose their right to participate in elections and be elected.
In addition, the Kerch Strait bridge, which connects to mainland Russia, would also be destroyed, and all Russian citizens settled in Crimea after 2014 would be expelled, and then all real estate transactions made during Moscow’s rule would be canceled.
However, given the frenetic activity and slow progress on the eastern and southern fronts, the possibility of regaining Crimea still seems very remote, not least because it is a “red line” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, as he described in April US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, but also because Ukraine still does not have the necessary weapons to do this, such as the US ATACMS long-range missiles.
Moreover, Ukraine must first liberate Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, where the battle is far from over. And if Russia were to lose Crimea, the shadow of Putin’s possible use of nuclear weapons would once again loom over Europe. Reasonably (takeover by Rador Radio Romania.)
Read also:
