Russians surround Sevastopol with roadblocks
Occupiers on alert for saboteurs as Ukraine shows ability to strike far behind enemy lines
RUSSIA has erected roadblocks around Crimea’s largest city to hunt for partisan saboteurs amid fresh attacks across the occupied territory, including a possible drone strike yesterday on its Black Sea Fleet headquarters.
Soldiers were searching cars with Ukrainian number plates going into or out of Sevastopol on Friday night, according to local Telegram channels.
The Russian authorities that have ruled Crimea since Moscow seized it from Ukraine in 2014 have appealed for calm following a fortnight of mysterious attacks on military targets far behind their front line, including ammunition depots and airfields.
But a drone attack on Sevastopol yesterday showed the Kremlin’s war is now regularly affecting territory it had thought was untouchable.
Footage posted on social media showed a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) flying above the city in daylight and Russian air defence guns firing at it.
The drone crashed into the roof of what Russia said was its Black Sea Fleet headquarters, and pictures are circulating of soldiers inspecting the damage.
It is not clear if it was shot down, as Moscow claimed, or if it intended to crash into the building. There were no reported casualties.
One video showed holidaymakers swimming in the sea and sunbathing on a pier looking on in shock as a cloud of black smoke rises in the distance. “If possible, get to your homes as quickly as possible and stay there,” Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, said on his Telegram channel.
The Kremlin has used Crimea as a supply hub for its army since it invaded the rest of Ukraine in February. It has been storing ammunition in depots and warplanes at airfields in the belief that such targets are out of reach for Kyiv’s forces. But via a campaign of what are believed to be partisan sabotage missions, Ukraine has shown in the past few weeks that is no longer the case.
An attack on Saky air base on Aug 9 appears to have taken out more than half of the Black Sea Fleet’s air force.
Although not all of the reports of attacks appear to be true – an apparent strike on Belbek air base on Aug 18 has since been debunked – the psychological impact is important.
“Russian authorities are visibly increasing security measures in Crimea, indicating growing worry about the threat of Ukrainian strikes on rear areas previously believed to be secure,” the US-based Institute for the Study of War said in its daily assessment yesterday.
The blasts in Crimea have coincided with a major Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the neighbouring Kherson region, which Russia captured in the first week of the war.
On top of long-range artillery attacks on bridges and supply lines, there have been mysterious assassinations, fuelling rumours of a deep special forces operation behind enemy lines.
Yesterday, Ukrainian soldiers told The Times there was a wide network of partisans in Russian-controlled territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
“The guys from the south are preparing for Sept 11,” said “Rebel”, 34, a former military intelligence officer who trains partisan bands. “We know all the traitors. We know everyone who helps the Russians. A big surprise and many gifts await them before this date.” The signifance of the date was not clear.
Among the “gifts” attributed to the partisan network were the murder of a senior pro-Russia official last month in Novaya Kakhovka, and the poisoning of Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-imposed governor of Kherson City, who is currently in a coma in a Moscow hospital.
That the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex finds itself at the heart of the Ukrainian war is highly alarming. Russia has occupied the site since March; Ukrainians operate it under Russian supervision. Kyiv says that Moscow has cynically turned it into a military base, using the risks of firing near the plant as a shield against Ukrainian attacks. Experts insist that serious damage is unlikely, and were it to happen, the area affected would be limited – more akin to the Fukushima disaster than to Chernobyl (if that is any comfort).
This is one more reminder of how Russia’s crimes affect the entire world – not just through energy blackmail – and why appeasement never works in the long run. Vladimir Putin made it abundantly clear what he was going to do, both with word and deed; the seizure of Crimea in 2014 was a curtain raiser. Failure to draw red lines and enforce them left the West looking on as he invaded a sovereign country – again, after experts said he probably wouldn’t do it. He was surely encouraged by America’s botched and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, China, having destroyed democracy in Hong Kong, now poses a threat to Taiwan. Years of underinvestment in our defence are exposed as a false economy. Russia has agreed to allow inspectors into Zaporizhzhia, which is a step in the right direction, but responsibility for the danger lies squarely with Putin’s invasion, and if he is able to get away with butchering a sovereign democracy, it will only be a matter of time before he seeks to expand his empire elsewhere.