Ukraine's quiet persistence: Navigating the path to Crimea's liberation

CEPA carries an article that ten years after Russia’s theft of Crimea, the Ukrainian determination to end its land grab is undimmed, Caliber.Az reprints the article.

A decade ago, on March 18, 2014, Vladimir Putin signed documents to illegally annex Crimea. The request had come from a puppet administration that had organized a rigged referendum. All of which hid the reality; that a sovereign region of Ukraine, a peaceful neighboring country, had been stolen as a result of military action.

What followed is well known — Russian forces also moved into the Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. The Russian war on Ukraine has continued ever since, becoming an all-out war in February 2022. 

Some Western analysts and leading figures still toy with the idea that Crimea in particular, and parts of the occupied territories, might become the price paid by Ukrainians for peace. The Pope, for example, stated in March that Ukraine should show “the courage of the white flag” and negotiate with its invader.

This was not going to happen in 2014 and it will not happen in 2024. It is hard for Ukrainians to believe that the West would now alter its principled position to reward Russia’s despotic leadership, but even if it did it would not find support among a population that has suffered immeasurable human and material loss.

It’s best to start by understanding how we got here. Russia’s seizure of Crimea was met with near-universal condemnation by the international community and a refusal to recognize it as part of the Russian Federation. This included a rather forceful statement — the Crimea Declaration — signed by then Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in 2018. The parallel to the Welles Declaration of 1940, opposing the illegal Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, was clear. Russia may sustain its occupation of the peninsula for a long time, but this should never be recognized as legal. 

Ukraine’s position on the status of Crimea — that it should one day return to Ukraine — has never wavered, even when that day seems far off. In time, with continuing attention paid to the issue through initiatives like the Crimea Platform, Ukraine’s rights will be better understood and even better accepted. 

In the meantime, it is critical that the Kyiv government assert its rights through military and other actions to harm the enemy and make clear that it is exercising its right to resist on sovereign territory.

By launching his full-scale aggression in February 2022, Putin unwittingly opened the floodgates and unblocked the potential path toward de-occupation. Prior to this, Ukraine had not used military force on the peninsula. What seemed distant and elusive became a matter of a practical conversation on how Ukraine could remove the occupying force and restore governance — civil service and legislative time are being spent on preparing for just this outcome. The Kremlin was rattled and started urgently beefing up its defenses of the peninsula.

To little effect. Ukrainian forces have throughout the 25-month-long conflict succeeded in evading Russia’s Crimean defenses again and again, delivering some very serious blows. Those have included a wide variety of systems — from cruise missiles and drones, both aerial and naval, to sabotage operations by special forces units. 

The range of targets struck has been extraordinary — Russian naval vessels and its Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol have been struck, most warships have been forced to flee to Russian ports hundreds of miles to the east, air defense sites and airfields have been struck, along with railways and roads including the Kerch Bridge. All of this without a manned navy of any size.

The peninsula’s recapture is not just a matter of national pride. Leaving it in Russia’s hands would mean a constant threat to the rest of Ukraine, as was shown so vividly in 2022 since it is a convenient jumping-off point for the ongoing and future attacks on the rest of the country. Russian ownership of the Ukrainian harbor and naval facilities in Sevastopol is likewise a threat, but to the whole region since the Kremlin views the Black Sea as its own backyard.

Crimean liberation is an issue where there is the full consensus in Ukrainian society. This is not an issue where the political leadership sets the agenda and then drags the rest of the country behind it. If anything, it is the contrary: one might conceive of situations where Ukraine’s leaders entertain the idea of giving up Crimea, and can equally imagine that this would hit a wall of popular opposition. Public opinion sets limits on the country’s leaders, in Ukraine as elsewhere. Despite this war being very hard on Ukrainians, there is no appetite for giving away land; 80 per cent or more reject any territorial concessions.

The liberation of Crimea may happen suddenly, as seemed possible last summer, or it may take years. From the Ukrainian standpoint, it doesn’t matter in terms of approach. For now, the military should maintain pressure on Russian troops with long-distance strikes, keep a lid on the Russian Black Sea fleet, and seek to disrupt supply both via the Kerch Bridge and the land corridor. With the right tactics and weapons, Russian efforts to resupply can be made very risky so that it amounts to a bleeding sore that is never fully healed. 

For now, there is no need for Ukraine to raise alarms among its allies about liberating Crimea right away and to make them consider the possibility that Putin and his advisers may take reckless, possibly nuclear action, to keep control. After all, this is an issue where a lack of allied support for Ukraine is notable and evokes huge nervousness. 

The recent discussion about the provision of the Taurus missiles to Ukraine in Germany has demonstrated that substantial fear of the escalation still exists in the West. Ukraine should not be guided by this notion in its actions but should be mindful of existing allied concerns. 

Whether this is a legitimate concern or not (there is no way to know for sure), Ukraine has no need to test this “red line” at the moment. Instead, it should burrow and probe like a worm in the woodwork of Russia’s defenses; quietly, diligently, determinedly eating away, for decades if need be, to rot and soften Russia’s imperial project.