Crimea ‘sabotage’ highlights Russia’s woes in Ukraine war
- Tuesday’s explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Crimea, leading to chaotic scenes when around 3,000 people had to be evacuated
- Meanwhile, Russia says it had broken up what was described as a six-person terrorist cell of a banned Islamist group – Ukraine has not commented
Fires burned and ammunition exploded at a depot in Crimea on Wednesday, a day after the latest suspected Ukrainian attack on a military site in the Russia-annexed peninsula, highlighting the challenges facing Moscow.
The peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014, was once a secure base that Moscow’s forces have used to launch attacks – and it was a staging ground for the start of the February 24 invasion. But in recent days, explosions have destroyed several Russian planes at an airbase in Crimea, and munitions blew up Tuesday.
Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility, but President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the most recent blasts on Tuesday while Russia blamed “sabotage.”
Tuesday’s explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot near Dzhankoi in Crimea, leading to chaotic scenes when around 3,000 people had to be evacuated.
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The massive explosions sent plumes of smoke rising over nearby beaches and caused sunbathers to flee.
At the time, Moscow suggested that the blasts were accidental, perhaps caused by a careless smoker, an explanation that drew mockery from Ukrainian authorities.
As a vivid reminder of Russia’s vulnerability in Crimea, the peninsula’s regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said that authorities were still fighting the fires on Wednesday with a helicopter, as minutions continued to detonate. He said that a search for perpetrators of the attack was under way.
The spate of attacks represented the latest setback for Moscow, which began its invasion with hopes of taking the capital of Kyiv and much of the country in a lightning blitz but soon became bogged down in the face of fiercer than expected resistance from Ukrainian forces.
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Ukraine-backed forces possibly behind strikes in Russian-annexed territory
As the war nears the half-year mark, the sides are now engaged in a war of attrition, fighting village to village, largely in the country’s east. The attacks in Crimea could open a new front that would represent a significant escalation in the war and further stretch Russia’s military resources.
“Russian commanders will highly likely be increasingly concerned with the apparent deterioration in security across Crimea, which functions as rear base area for the occupation,” Britain’s Defence ministry wrote on Twitter.
But it was not clear whether the attacks in Crimea would unblock the stalemate, as Ukrainian and Russian forces grind each other down in a war that has driven millions from their homes, disrupted food supplies worldwide and occasionally raised concerns about a nuclear accident.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged citizens to keep away from military facilities in areas occupied by Kremlin forces, including in Crimea.
“The fewer opportunities the occupiers have to do evil and kill Ukrainians, the sooner we will be able to end this war and liberate our country,” Zelensky said in his evening address. The blasts near the town of Dzhankoy in northern Crimea – a week after explosions at an airbase on the peninsula destroyed fighter jets – mark the beginning of a series of attacks, according to a Zelensky adviser.
Worsening the outlook in Crimea was a report by the Kommersant business paper, that explosions had also taken place near Gvardeyskoye in the centre of the peninsula. By Wednesday, there still was no comment from the Russian authorities.
The British intelligence report said Gvardeyskoye and Dzhankoi “are home to two of the most important Russian military airfields in Crimea.”
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Russia ‘neutralised’ Islamist cell in Crimea
The top official in Russian-annexed Crimea said on Wednesday that the FSB security service had broken up what he described as a six-person terrorist cell of a banned Islamist group, a day after explosions rocked one of Russia’s military bases there.
“All of them are detained. The activities of the terrorists were coordinated, as one would expect, from the territory of the terrorist state of Ukraine,” Sergei Aksyonov, the official, said on Telegram.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Aksyonov said the suspects were members of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in Russia.
An FSB statement did not say whether the detained individuals were linked with explosions on Tuesday.
But it mentioned Dzhankoi, along with the city of Yalta, as the two locations where the alleged cell had been ‘neutralised.’
The FSB said the cell had been recruiting local Muslims and accused it of carrying out terrorist activity.
Military analysts have pointed to the possible involvement of Ukrainian partisan groups or special forces operating far behind enemy lines.
Meanwhile, on the eastern front, the stalemate between both sides continued, with the brutality of the shelling causing ever more death and destruction.
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In the Donetsk region at the forefront of the Russian offensive, two civilians were killed and seven others were wounded by recent Russian shelling of several towns and villages.
Russian Tu-22M3 long-range bombers fired cruise missiles at the Odesa region overnight, leaving four people injured, according to Odesa regional administration spokesman Oleh Bratchuk.
In the southern city of Mykolayiv, two Russian missiles damaged a university building early Wednesday but injured no one.
The Russian forces also shelled Kharkiv and various parts of the Kharkiv region overnight, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure but inflicting no casualties.
On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to travel to Ukraine for a meeting in the western city of Lviv with Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They are expected to discuss the grain shipments and a possible fact-finding mission to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg, Reuters
