Targeting Crimea… What’s behind the Ukrainian expansion?

Experts and analysts speaking to Sky News Arabia said the attack was the second in less than a week that Ukraine has targeted Crimea, a new indicator in the more than 16-month-long war.

4 Ukrainian causes

Ivan Yas, a consultant at the Ukrainian Policy Center, believes that Ukrainian attacks on the Crimean region fall within the framework of legal and military objectives “because it is an occupied territory.”

Ivan Yass, in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, said that despite the fact that Kiev does not always take responsibility for the attacks on Crimea, there are many reasons for what is happening there, in particular:

• Ukraine reminds Russia that Crimea is our territory and we plan to return it.
• An attempt to break the supply chains of weapons, soldiers and fuel from Crimea to the southern parts of Ukraine, where the counteroffensive is taking place.
• Attacks on airfields in Crimea, where planes have taken off to attack Ukraine
• These attacks on Russian warships and docks, from which Kiev was attacked, as well as the blockade of Ukraine’s ports, are critical to renewing Ukraine’s ability to export grain and other foodstuffs to the rest of the world by sea.

Part of the strategy

In the context, Vadim Aristovych, an academic in international affairs at the Ukrainian Tavriskyi University, expects Ukrainian pressure to continue in the coming days in the vicinity of Crimea, which is very important for Russia in general and President Vladimir Putin in particular.

Vadim Aristovych says, “The Crimean region is a valuable military target for cutting off more than 70% of equipment and military support for Russian forces in the south, prompting Moscow to respond with frenzied attacks, most of them in the coastal city of Odessa.”

And Vadim Aristovitch, in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, said that the Russian bombing of the coastal city in the past days was not based on military targets, but on civilian targets, as follows:

• Destruction of whole grain export infrastructure at Chornomorsk port, Odessa region.
• 60,000 tons of grain at the port to be shipped via the Black Sea were destroyed.
• Targeting parades and setting fire to oil transport berths.
• An entire industrial facility along with two grain storage warehouses were lost.
• Targeting all electricity and power generators in the entire vicinity of the port and city.
• Destruction of terrestrial communication networks by launching drone strikes on control centers.

Vadim Aristovych notes that Moscow and Kiev will witness a mutual increase in the level of military targets, most of which will be concentrated in the south so that Kiev can penetrate Russian strongholds in the region, and the beginning of that plan is to target Crimea to cut off supplies and disperse the Russians.

Russian expansion

Oleksandr Fomin, a researcher at the Center for Security Issues of the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that the Russian response to the first targeting of the Crimean bridge last Monday was not accidental, as Kiev tries to portray, but as he described against Crimea, based on informed and precise attacks on the port and city.

Alexander Fomin, during his report to “Sky News Arabia”, denies the reasons for Moscow’s focus on the recent strikes on the coastal city of Odessa:

• The port is used to receive armed ships from the West via the Black Sea:
• Determine locations where drone boats were launched near Crimea and the bridge.
• Under the pretext of the grain deal, Ukraine turned the area and the port into a staging area for operations and military equipment targeting Russia.
• The port was used in an organized manner in military supply and distribution operations to Ukrainian fronts in the south.