The day after he took over as leader of Crimea 12 years ago, I sat with Sergei Aksyonov amid the splendour of the Russian Theatre in Simferopol for an interview. I had just watched this Moldovan-born chancer – known locally as “Putin’s Puppet”- make a promise to hundreds of women attending a special concert: “We will protect you from any situation,” he declared, as Kremlin forces tightened their noose on this prized peninsular. His aim, he told me, was to make Crimea “the happiest place on earth”, insisting this was “undoubtedly with Russia” before inviting British leaders to visit for holidays and investing.
Aksyonov still rules Crimea. He typifies the shady types who run places grabbed from Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s forces: nicknamed The Goblin for alleged ties to organised crime and the head of a rabidly pro-Russian party that won a paltry four per cent vote in previous elections. But his realm is far from the happiest place on earth today. It has power cuts, food shortages and fuel restrictions. Summer camps for children are cancelled, tourism has collapsed. On Friday, so many people were fleeing after weeks of attacks by Ukraine that there was a five-hour queue of cars to cross the Kerch Bridge to Russia – and Aksyonov had to announce a state of emergency.
This is a highly significant moment, four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion – which, we should never forget, was encouraged by the West’s tepid response to his theft of Crimea and all those patsy fools such as Nigel Farage who parroted the Kremlin’s propaganda. This first annexation of European terrain since 1945 was supposed to symbolise Putin’s regime with reassertion of Russian power, turbo-charging his domestic popularity amid economic stagnation and flickerings of pro-democracy protest. Bear in mind that the bridge filled last week with fleeing citizens meant so much to Putin that he opened it himself, driving a truck across it in 2018.
This is another humiliation for the Russian president after the scaling-down of his precious Victory Day parade in Moscow last month, followed by brazen attacks on St Petersburg as he hosted his flagship economic forum. It shreds Putin’s pretence that Crimea is a stable part of his state as he hides behind air defences ringing his Valdai dacha. So perhaps Crimea does serve to symbolise his sordid reign and Russian strength – but now it shows Kyiv gaining the upper hand in this awful war that the arrogant despot launched with such stupidity.
Yet, this is not a sudden twist, attributable simply to Kyiv’s military and technological advances, but part of a long-running strategy to target Crimea. First came Ukraine’s astonishing defeat of Russia’s navy with innovative use of maritime drones to sink warships bristling with weapons, forcing the Black Sea Fleet – pride of Moscow’s navy – to retreat in mid-2024 from its Crimea base.
“Many countries in the world, including Great Britain, are very quickly thinking how to reformat their fleets because they have turned out to be very vulnerable,” said the special forces chief who led these attacks when I met him last year – as indicated by weekend reports on our much-awaited defence investment plan.
Ukraine ground down air defences, both in Crimea and Russia itself, with missiles and drones to seize control of skies over the peninsular. Then it pounded the roads, rail and ferry networks taking civilian and military supplies to Crimea. The ability of the 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge to carry cargo is reduced with fuel transport barred since the October 2022 attack, when a truck loaded with explosives was blown up beside a rail tanker the day after Putin’s 70th birthday. Kyiv would still love to see destruction of their assailant’s prized piece of infrastructure, claiming to hit two protective Pantsir systems and four radar units last week. Meanwhile attacks across the massive expanse of Russia force Kremlin military chiefs to prioritise such defences – and even Donald Trump is reportedly impressed by the fightback.
Ukraine would like to win back all its land stolen by Russia. But from the president down, they have honed in on Crimea rather than the Donbas industrial heartlands seized at the same time and subsequently wrecked by Putin’s goons. As Volodymyr Zelensky said in the first year of full-scale war: “Everything started with Crimea and will end with it.” Kyrylo Budanov, the former head of military intelligence appointed as his chief of staff earlier this year, was linked previously to undercover operations there and was initially blamed by Russia for the blast on Kerch Bridge. He admitted to me a few days later that Crimea is very special to him, having spent much of his childhood there. “That’s why the return of Crimea is a personal thing,” he said.
Yet this peninsular, laden with history, is not only symbolic of Putin’s bloodstained aggression but also his Achilles Heel. It is important for his military operations – but seen as critical for his political survival. Privately, there is acceptance in Kyiv that they will not regain land lost in 2014 in any armistice, although Zelensky’s team has prepared plans for Crimea’s return to its rightful motherland. But they believe the fleeing tourists, fuel shortages and threat of losing the peninsular piles pressure on their beleaguered foe – and at a time when he is already struggling to control the financial fallout of his war and find sufficient supplies of men for the meat grinder.
This is a risky strategy. Ukraine hopes the Russian leader will be forced to accept a peace deal that offers them realistic security and a chance to rebuild their shattered nation. Zelensky talked last week about authorising “a 40-day influence operation… against the aggressor state aimed at compelling it to end the war”. But a wounded Putin might alternatively lash out – perhaps escalating war with mass mobilisation, unleashing more covert attacks on Kyiv’s European allies, even stoking conflict in another border region knowing Nato is hobbled by Trump’s presence in the White House.
Once again, we witness how Crimea’s immense significance dwarfs its size.
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