Ukraine war: ten years after Putin annexed Crimea, Russia’s grip on the peninsula looks shaky

By Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham

It is ten years since Russia illegally annexed Crimea on March 18 2014. Subsequent efforts to firmly integrate the peninsula into the Russian Federation, however, have been far from the success story that the Kremlin often likes to portray.

In fact, comparing the increasingly shaky grip that Moscow has on the peninsula today with the situation before the annexation would suggest that Russia’s strategic position has actually worsened over the past decade.

The Kerch bridge between Crimea and Russia opened to much fanfare in 2018 with tje Russian President, Vladimir Putin, driving a truck across it. It has become a symbol not only of Russian occupation of Crimea, but also of Ukrainian resistance. Spectacular Ukrainian attacks in October 2022 and July 2023 exposed the tenuousness of Russia’s connection to the peninsula.

Not only that, but repeated missile and drone attacks on Russian installations in Crimea and partisan activity in Crimea have further heightened the sense of Russian vulnerability.

Black Sea successes

Most significant of all, Russia’s Black Sea fleet has suffered significant losses over the past two years. As a result of these Ukrainian successes, the Kremlin decided to relocate the Black Sea fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on the Russian mainland. Compare that with the situation prior to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 when Russia had a secure lease on the naval base of Sevastopol until 2042.

Moreover, the Turkish closure of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles shortly after the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 means that Russia can no longer freely move war ships in and out of the Black Sea. This makes losses, like those of the Black Sea fleet’s flagship cruiser Moskva in April 2022 and recently the patrol boat Sergey Kotov and the amphibian landing ship Caesar Kunikov, even more of a strategic blow to Russian capabilities.

These attacks also have a significant symbolic value for Ukraine and its allies.

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