The war intensifies in southern Ukraine, although in two very different foci. While the counteroffensive launched in early June by the Kiev army has put the Crimean peninsula in the spotlight in recent days, Russian troops hit the city of Odessa and issue warnings to ships that try to continue exporting grain from Ukraine after Moscow broke the pact that guaranteed a safe corridor through the Black Sea.
With the increase in attacks on the Ukrainian peninsula, in Russian hands since 2014, Ukraine recalls that, although far from the trenches, that territory continues to be an essential and inalienable pillar of the State, as reiterated by the president, Volodimir Zelensky. The last blow was recorded this Wednesday, a fire in what Russia considers a military training camp and Ukraine an ammunition depot. kyiv, in any case, avoids officially recognizing these actions that are, according to different sources and media, the work of the Ukrainian Security Forces. “Crimea is a logistics center that the Russians have been militarizing to the maximum throughout the occupation. 20% of what arrives does so through the bridge [de Kerch]. And that is enough to justify the attacks of our country”, defends Alexandr Krasnokutskii, professor of Philosophy and Public Administration and a student of the problem that affects that territory under Russian control.
The most important of these attacks occurred on Monday and managed to partially destroy the bridge that crosses the Kerch Strait, an infrastructure that leads directly to Russia and is therefore essential to keep Crimea under occupation. Although he has not spoken of committing direct attacks, Zelensky has hinted in recent days that the strategy consists of harassing the peninsula from the north through a counteroffensive with his troops and thus forcing his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to negotiate. In this sense, Ukraine announced certain advances on Wednesday in the direction of Melitopol (Zaporizhia region), the city that is located at the gates of Crimea and from which its army is still some 70 kilometers away.
“Russia insists that this bridge is a civil infrastructure, but we perceive it as military because it is used to transport military material,” adds Professor Krasnokutskii in his office at the University of Zaporizhia. He believes, as Zelensky foresees, that it is a good strategy to place troops in the north of Crimea, and considers that the Kerch bridge should be finished. In this way, “the peninsula becomes an island,” says Krasnokutskii, while commenting that those hypothetical negotiations that Putin would be forced into would serve Kiev “to save lives,” since “Ukraine does not have endless human resources.”
After the attacks on Crimea on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday -two of them repelled by Moscow-, this Wednesday a fire broke out in that territory at a military training camp in Kirovske (east). The flames forced the eviction of 2,000 residents, according to the occupation authorities, who did not offer reasons for the incident. Neither has kyiv done so on an official level. Some sources reported explosions for several hours at the location. Telegram channels linked to the Russian and Ukrainian security services pointed out that this fire is due to a nighttime air strike carried out by Ukraine, according to the Reuters agency. The spokesman for the Odessa regional authority, for his part, said that it is an ammunition depot.
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“Action is being taken. The situation is clearing up. I can’t say more at the moment,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitro Peskov said when asked about the incident. Of course, he said that Putin was aware.
“We cannot perceive Crimea as something foreign” to the counteroffensive, understands Krasnokutskii, who has no doubt that everything is part of attacks by his country that he considers legitimate. The Ukrainian army, he adds, has chosen to hit logistics centers for Russian troops on the peninsula. Despite everything, he believes that kyiv should be careful in planning for a possible retake of control of Crimea. The expert does not doubt that the occupation will end one day, but considers that a transition process will come later that will not be easy.
The peninsula, he says, has been in the hands of a Russian “dictatorship” for nearly a decade and it is not easy to know what the citizens think. “We cannot know, we need to be there and be able to carry out fieldwork, develop a real sociology. Meanwhile, we can only move in the field of hypothesis. In this way, hypothetically, in Crimea we can estimate that around 50% of the population is in favor of Ukraine, but there are many people who have Ukraine in their hearts and cannot talk about it”, the professor maintains.
This process of recuperation of authority by kyiv would take place in two ways, understands Krasnokutskii. On the one hand, formally, since kyiv has already opened a recruitment process for officials willing to swell a new administration to which 800 people have already joined, according to his information. This is a process that the Deputy Prime Minister, Irina Vereshchuk, already spoke about in March during an interview with EL PAÍS. It includes the Police, the Prosecutor’s Office, the army and other bodies of the Administration, explains the professor. But, beyond that formal answer, there is another parallel one, he adds. It is what civil society, citizens in general, must carry out, because “it is impossible to change that territory solely by force of the State,” he admits.
Odessa bombing
Russia, for its part, increases pressure on Odessa, a city on the shores of the Black Sea bombed on Tuesday and this Wednesday, after the breakdown on Monday of the agreement that allowed the export of Ukrainian grain through a safe corridor. In addition, the Kremlin said, through a statement from the Ministry of Defense, that from now on it will consider as a potential military objective any ship that approaches Ukrainian ports. Repeated attacks by Moscow on port infrastructure are trying to prevent the country’s grain exports to the rest of the world from continuing. Moscow claimed that they are in “retaliation” for the attack on the Kerch bridge.
The early morning of this Wednesday was “hellish” due to the launch of up to 63 missiles and drones, according to the Kiev authorities, who reported significant damage in intense bombardments that took place for the second consecutive night. Only in the port of Chornomorsk (Odesa), they add, 60,000 tons of cereal were lost. The main objective was precisely that region of Odessa, which centralizes in three of its ports the departure of cargo ships with grain that has allowed the agreement sponsored by the UN and Turkey known as the Black Sea Initiative and that Russia refused to extend when it expired last Monday. Ukraine sees in the damage caused by Russia an attempt to dissuade it from its decision to seek alternatives to that pact in order to continue exporting the grain.
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