Six Months into Russia’s War in Ukraine, a Critical Shift in Putin’s Once “Sacred Place.”

Photo by Reuters

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of its neighbor Ukraine began six months ago, and by all accounts it has failed to achieve Putin’s objectives of toppling the government in Kyiv and annexing further parts of that country. Instead, the warring sides face a grinding standoff in the Eastern oblasts of the country, where a larger Russian force has failed to strike a decisive blow against a nimbler, more motivated, and Western-supplied Ukrainian army. At the moment, neither side appears to have sufficient forces to mount an effective offensive campaign to take and hold cities or territories.

What this means in stark terms is that the war likely will be fought, as many modern wars have, as a battle of will and psychology to see whose people turn first against the effort and press for an end to the fighting. It is perhaps to that end that Ukrainian forces now have brought the fight to Russian-held territory, including the symbolically and strategically important region of Crimea, the peninsula that Russia illegally invaded and annexed in 2014 marking the start of open hostilities between the two nations. 

About two weeks ago, on August 9, Ukraine launched a drone strike upon the Saky air base on the Crimean peninsula, reportedly damaging or destroying more than half of Russia’s navy combat jets in the Black Sea Fleet, according to one Western official. Then the following Tuesday, huge explosions occurred at a temporary Russian ammunition depot in Crimea, with Ukrainian elite units claiming credit. Ukrainian forces were able to achieve these strikes in part due to their use of long-range weapons supplied by the West and special forces deployed to strike deep behind the front.

Russian troops in western Crimea also recently were forced to deploy antiaircraft fire at unspecified targets over the region, according to the Russian governor there. The effect was dramatic as scenes of defensive fire over the skies of Crimea flooded Russian social media. Local Russian officials urged residents not to panic, insisting there had been no casualties and that Russian air defenses were operational.

These strikes are having a material impact on logistics and a “significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership,” according to a Western official. From a military standpoint, Crimea is crucial to the Russian occupiers. It is a primary supply route for Russian troops now holding much of southern Ukraine, especially in the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Two main rail links that Russia needs to move heavy equipment in and out of the region run through Crimea. And it is home to air bases that Russia has used to fly missions and launch missiles into Ukraine.

But to understand why Ukranian attacks upon Crimea might also factor so heavily on the psychology and mindset of both sides, history—both recent and far past—is instructive. The peninsula is considered the “crown jewel” of the Black Sea, providing critical access for shipping and trade, especially agricultural products. With its miles of beaches and warm climate, Russian and regional elites have long used the region as a vacation spot and personal playground. Putin’s invasion and annexation of the peninsula in 2014 caused tourism to collapse for many years, but over time under Russian rule the wealthy and privileged returned to Crimea, and many Russians regained a false sense of national pride over the area, even though it had been seized illegally.

Putin’s claim to Crimea traces back hundreds of years and, unsurprisingly, deploys a distorted view of history. Catherine the Great first seized Crimea for Russia in 1783. Her lover and general, Prince Gregory Potemkin, writing from within an otherwise largely cold and desolate motherland, insisted that “Russia needs its paradise” and urged her to claim the land. She was finally able to do so after Russia defeated the Ottoman Turks in a major battle. To this day, the region continues to be home to many Muslim residents, including a sizable and deeply persecuted minority of Tartars, many of which were been forcibly relocated out of the region by Stalin in a move leading to thousands of deaths, a history with eerie echoes today.

Crimea remained part of the Russian empire, and then under Russian Soviet control, until 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev pressed for the transfer of Crimea from the Russian part of the USSR to the Ukrainian part, a move formalized by the rubber stamp Soviet Presidium at the time. Despite official pronouncements hailing the “boundless trust and love” Russia had for the Ukrainian people, a likely reason for this transfer was for Khrushchev to consolidate power by winning friends in the Ukrainian Soviet government, allies whom he desperately needed after overseeing the Soviet side of a brutal civil and atrocity-filled war in the Western part of Ukraine. The move also effectively put a huge number of Russians, some 850,000 people, inside of the Ukrainian SSR, providing Khrushchev with a great deal of “internal” leverage with that government—a population distortion tactic that Russia has deployed elsewhere in, for example, the Baltic countries.

That fateful decision by Khrushchev to transfer Crimea meant that for nearly 40 years, generations of Crimeans grew up thinking of themselves as Ukrainian soviets. When the USSR broke up in 1991 and its territory thereafter was formally divided up, it was unsurprising that Ukraine kept the Crimean peninsula, despite it having a large number of ethnic Russians within it. But Putin, with his “Russian World” view of history and destiny, has never accepted that Crimea, which was for centuries part of Russia, rightfully belonged to Ukraine. 

The boundaries between the two countries, and the place of Crimea within Ukraine, were reaffirmed in the Trilateral Statement of 1994, in which Ukraine gave back to Russia the nuclear warheads stationed on its territory in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Britain. Putin broke that promise just one generation later with his invasion and annexation of the peninsula in 2014, which he falsely claimed was necessary to right a “historical wrong.” Despite pledging no further interest in dividing up Ukraine, Putin then used Crimea as a critical staging ground for the invasion of the rest of the country beginning some six months ago.

Putin has called Crimea a “sacred place” and Russia’s “holy land.” A top adviser has warned that if the peninsula were attacked, Ukraine would face “Judgment Day.” But those warnings have not seemed to deter Ukraine, which now apparently has the capability and the will to strike behind the front lines and deep into the region. 

Residents in Crimea are acting accordingly.  A record 38,000 cars were recently logged in a single day crossing the 12-mile bridge linking Crimea and Russia. “The queue these days to leave Crimea for Russia across the bridge proves that the absolute majority of citizens of the terrorist state already understand or at least feel that Crimea is not a place for them,” President Zelenskyy of Ukraine warned in one of his nightly addresses.