The Ukrainian government has decided that it is not going to stop at liberating those territories that Russia has occupied, starting on 24 February. On 15 August, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy created an advisory council for the return of Crimea. The events of the past few days in Russian-occupied Crimea suggest that Ukraine has gone on a counteroffensive.
The first serious attack on Russian military facilities in Crimea took place on August 9, 2022. A massive attack on the Saki airfield in Novofedorovka resulted in the destruction of an ammunition and fuel depot, as well as 9 to 14 aircraft:
And this morning, August 16, 2022, a series of explosions at an ammunition depot again occurred in occupied Crimea in the Dzhankoy region near the village of Mayskoye:
At the same time, a transformer substation in Dzhankoy caught fire. Importantly, this substation is a key facility for Moscow’s plans to switch the Zaporizhzhia NPP to Crimea.
And on the afternoon of the same day, residents of the Simferopol district reported that several explosions were heard on the territory of the military airbase, and black smoke was seen in the village of Gvardeyskoye. According to available information, the airfield is part of the Russian Navy and there were 12 SU-24M and 12 SU-25SM aircraft.
Photo of the airfield before the explosions:
The destruction of Russian depots and military airfields in Crimea shows that Russia has a weak and ineffective air defence system. The lauded S-500 systems are either non-existent in Crimea or their “reliability” is greatly exaggerated.
The Ukrainian-Russian war has already spread to Crimea and Russia’s border territories. Russia failed to keep the situation in the so-called “special operation” mode; Ukraine has proved to be a stronger and more determined adversary than Moscow had expected.
