For Moscow, the mistake was unforgivable. On January 16, a colonel in the Rosgvardia, the national guard, Sergei Volkov, was sentenced to six years in prison for “abuse of power with serious consequences”. His fault? Having ordered poor quality radars to defend the very strategic Kerch Strait bridge, linking Crimea to mainland Russia. A priority target of Ukraine, the building has been the victim of two attacks since the start of the conflict – one in October 2022 and the other in July 2023.
“If the Kerch bridge were destroyed, it would be a significant loss for the Russians in addition to being a personal defeat for Vladimir Putin, judges General Dominique Trinquand, former head of the French mission to the UN and author of What awaits us. The butterfly effect of global conflicts (Robert Laffont, 2023). Beyond the symbolic aspect, this would considerably hamper the logistical flows of the Russian forces occupying southern Ukraine.”
“A key region for the Russians”
Annexed by Russia almost a decade ago, in March 2014, Crimea is now more than ever in the sights of Ukrainian forces. The latest coup to date, the destruction, claimed by Kiev, of an A-50 radar and command plane above the Sea of Azov, northeast of Crimea, and the attack on a second aircraft, an Il-22 serving as a command post, considered “destroyed” by the Ukrainian Air Force due to damage suffered, although it managed to land at Anapa airport , in Russia. “I thank the Air Force for this perfectly planned and executed operation in the Azov Sea region!” the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zalouzhny, welcomed the situation on January 15.
In recent months, the Ukrainian army has increased high-level operations against the peninsula. “This is a key region for the Russians,” points out General Trinquand. “There are numerous rear bases and logistics centers used by Moscow to support its war effort.” On December 26, kyiv claimed to have destroyed the landing ship Novocherkassk, stationed at the dock in the Russian naval base of Feodossia.
More recently, on January 18, the resistance movement Atesh (“fire”, in Ukrainian) confirmed that Ukrainian strikes carried out against Crimea in late December had sunk a Russian corvette in Sevastopol – Moscow had at the time claimed that it had been rejected. “[Cette nouvelle information] indicates that Ukraine’s recent campaign of strikes against occupied Crimea may have been more successful than has been confirmed so far by open sources,” emphasized in a report released the same day by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
20% of Russian fleet in the Black Sea destroyed
“The Ukrainians have implemented a tactic of harassment aimed at increasing the cost of maintaining Russian forces in Crimea, notes General (2S) Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of the National Defense Review (RDN). But their ammunition being limited, they seek above all to hit targets with high added value.” In September, a submarine and another warship were destroyed following a strike in the naval base of Sevastopol. Less than ten days later, the headquarters of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea was in turn bombed in Sevastopol, during the “crab trap” operation, injuring, according to kyiv, several senior Russian officers present in the building. .
The multiplication of these actions has had very concrete consequences. At the end of December, British Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps estimated that “20% of the Russian Black Sea Fleet [avait été détruite] over the last four months.” “Crimea is the tool for controlling the Black Sea, notes General Pellistrandi. But we see that the Russian navy was forced to move some of its equipment which was stationed in its historic base of Sevastopol.” Analysis of satellite images taken between June and December 2023 shows that Russian forces have transferred some of their means towards the port of Novorossiysk, on the eastern part of the Black Sea, further away from the Ukrainian firing zones.
The strikes against Crimea should in any case continue in 2024. “[Isoler la péninsule et y affaiblir les capacités militaires russes] “is extremely important for us, because it is the way for us to reduce the number of attacks coming from this region,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with The Economist published on January 1. The 40 Scalp missiles, with a range of 560 kilometers, promised by Emmanuel Macron during his press conference on January 16, could help them.
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