OPINION: Hell in Crimea

The battle to regain Crimea in the Black Sea has been underway since Russia’s 2022 invasion, but its repossession by Ukraine looms, and once that occurs, it will represent a major victory.

Its capture would be important not only strategically but also because of its symbolic and historical significance to Vladimir Putin. Crimea is at the heart of Putin’s narrative about Russia’s imperial destiny. He annexed it after his initial invasion of Ukraine’s Donbas region in 2014, after staging a bogus referendum, and claiming that 97% of Crimeans wanted to become part of Russia. Its seizure boosted Putin’s popularity among Russians, but the world knew otherwise. On June 17, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov dramatically announced that the battle to retake Crimea was succeeding and was being escalated. 

“For the Russians, Hell is beginning. Logistics are being cut off. Crimea is being isolated by drones,” he said.

Many Crimeans are without food, fuel, and power, and are now fleeing. That’s why it’s not coincidental that Putin’s spokesman hinted this week that they are “ready” for peace talks, as Ukraine closes in on Crimea and bombards Russian cities.

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Syrsky said Russia maintains an advantage in manpower and weapons and may expand operations from the north.

For years, Putin has emphasized Crimea’s historical importance, over and above its importance as a strategic territory with a major naval base. He claimed that it is the spiritual birthplace of Russian civilization and Orthodox Christianity, a belief that is the cornerstone of his historical revisionism. He said, “It is in Crimea that the spiritual roots of a diverse but monolithic Russian state and Russian centralized government are located…For Russia, Crimea... holds enormous civilizational and sacred meaning... This is how we will regard it. From now on and forever.”Such high-blown rhetoric is nonsense. Russia spent centuries trying to acquire the peninsula, and then to keep it. It was first annexed in the 18th century from Turkic-speaking Tatars. Two centuries later, it was swallowed by the Soviet Union. In 1954, Moscow gifted Crimea to Ukraine, then reoccupied it in 2014 through its phony referendum. However, Ukraine wants it back because it is a strategically important asset and because, geographically, Crimea is a southern extension of mainland Ukraine, attached to the rest of the country by the narrow Isthmus of Perekop. It has no land connection to Russia.

On June 14, after being battered constantly by Ukraine, Moscow announced that its Crimean naval base, Sevastopol, was relocating to a port called Novorossiysk on the Russian coast. This was an admission of failure. Putin often noted that the initial naval base, fortress, and town were steeped in Russian history and were built in 1783 by Prince Grigory Potemkin, at the order of Empress Catherine the Great. The port was militarily important for decades as home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. This allowed Russia to monitor and control Ukraine’s and the region’s shipping lanes and exports. It also became a critical base of support for Moscow’s military actions against Ukraine, Georgia, and across the region.

But since Russia’s Ukraine invasion in 2022, its navy and Sevastopol have been steadily under attack. Half of Putin’s Black Sea fleet has been sunk by Ukraine, even though it had no “navy.” It attacked Russians by air and sea, using drones and weaponizing recreational sea-doo by turning them into remote-controlled torpedoes. Crimea’s local partisans also attacked the naval base and its personnel. Now Russia abandons Crimea. The Institute for the Study of War in Washington recently confirmed: “The Russian military command is planning to relocate remaining Black Sea Fleet command structures currently based in occupied Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, as headquarters are steadily losing functionality amid severe logistics issues due to Ukraine’s intensified strike campaign against Crimea.”

Ukraine has recently cut Russian supply lines and entry points, and Crimeans leave because they are running out of fuel and food. Fedorov said that during the first four months of 2026, Ukraine tripled its drone attacks on the peninsula. “We are simultaneously providing funding to drone units that know how to rapidly use and procure them. So, hell is beginning for the Russians, and it is very difficult to deal with. And we have this window of opportunity. Crimea is being isolated. And this is having an impact on the mainland [battlefield].”

Like most Ukrainian military initiatives, the successful campaign against Sevastopol came about because Kyiv reinvented naval warfare. In February 2022, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet included dozens of warships, subs, and facilities that blockaded Ukrainian ports and launched missiles against its cities. Then, two months later, Ukrainians sank its flagship, the Moskva, with missiles. The embarrassment was enormous and encouraged Ukraine to keep pummeling the place with missiles, guided by Western intelligence. By September 2023, they had destroyed large ships in drydock, destroyed Crimea’s air defenses, and had finally forced Russia to begin to relocate its fleet.

Vessels have been gradually transferred to Novorossiysk on Russia’s mainland coast, and by 2024, Sevastopol was no longer a base of operation. Then the recapture of the peninsula began, and the implications for Putin and Russia are profound. This is because Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 was celebrated and regarded as his most important accomplishment. It represented strength and national greatness. Now it’s a loss that debunks his national narrative.

Prominent Russian opposition figure Garry Kasparov argues that the liberation of Crimea is an absolute prerequisite for any real change in Russia. He asserts that the war can only end with a decisive Ukrainian victory and the return of the Ukrainian flag to Sevastopol. That possibility now looms. Ukrainians are close to reoccupying the territory that Putin has declared was both sacred and eternal. Crimea was to symbolize the rebirth of a Great Russian Empire, and its impending loss exposes Putin’s delusion and miscalculation.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, emphasized this reality. Putin made a “historic mistake” by invading Ukraine, and his propaganda had tried to convince Russians that Russia is fighting the entire “collective West” rather than Ukraine alone. But Ukrainian-made weapons are conquering the place. “This [blaming the West] was meant to hide Putin’s humiliation and explain why this war lasts longer than WWI – A war against a country he said did not exist and was meant to collapse years ago. It didn’t.” Sybiha added, “Putin has the way out. He just needs to order his occupation forces to cease fire and stop the war.”

But Kasparov believes peace can only be achieved through the total, decisive military defeat of Russian forces in Crimea and Ukraine and the economic collapse of the Russian war machine. Crimea’s impending fall marks the beginning of Putin’s end.

Reprinted from [email protected] – Diane Francis on America and the World.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.