The Kerch Bridge, connecting Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine across the Kerch Strait, seen in September 2019. The bridge has become a political symbol of Russia’s control over Crimea since 2014, and Ukraine has repeatedly targeted it in the ongoing war. (Shutterstock/Sergey Denisenko)
Is Ukraine Gearing Up for an Attack on Crimea?
Ukraine’s previous attempt to attack Crimea from land in 2023 ended in failure—but much has changed in the last three years of war.
The Ukrainian military continues to pound Russian positions in the occupied Crimean Peninsula. In recent weeks, Kyiv has launched a growing number of strikes against Russian military and critical infrastructure in Crimea and the occupied southern land bridge forming its land connection with Russia—raising suspicions that a possible counteroffensive might be in the works.
Ukraine Is Striking Crimea from the Air—Could It Attack from Land?
As part of the Ukrainian military’s long-range fires strategy, it has repeatedly struck military, logistical, infrastructural, and economic targets in Crimea in recent weeks. But these strikes might also reveal Kyiv’s ambition for another counteroffensive in the direction of the strategic peninsula.
“Ukrainian forces continued to systematically strike bridges and other transport infrastructure supporting Russian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) that connect occupied Kherson Oblast with Crimea,” the Institute for the Study of War wrote in a recent operational assessment of the war.
Ukraine’s strikes on Russian transport and railway infrastructure have disrupted Russian ground lines of communication, negatively affecting the Russian military’s logistics in the Russian-occupied portion of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region. ISW noted that the effect of these strikes, in combination with Russia’s sudden loss of access to Starlink satellite internet services, had had a deleterious effect on the Russian position in southern Ukraine.
The Crimean Peninsula is a key hub of Russian operations in its ongoing war. Although the war began in earnest in February 2022, when the Kremlin launched a large-scale land invasion of Ukraine, many observers date its origins to February 2014, when Russian soldiers without insignia—derisively dubbed the “little green men”—marched into the peninsula, captured key installations, and paved the way for Russian conventional military units. Subsequently, the Russian authorities held a sham “referendum” that allowed the Kremlin to cover the operation in a veneer of legitimacy.
Once the large-scale invasion began in 2022, Crimea served as a key starting point for the Russian military’s southern thrust that aimed to capture Ukraine’s Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. In the first months of the war, the Russian Army conquered a strip of land running from Russia to northern Crimea, providing a land connection with the peninsula; it had previously only been connected to Russia via the Kerch Bridge, a single point of failure that has repeatedly come under Ukrainian attack.
Ukraine Has Tried to Capture Crimea Before, Without Success
Ukraine has repeatedly insisted that it will retake Crimea from Russia, but doing so would be a daunting challenge. From 2014 through 2022, Moscow fortified Crimea in preparation for war against Ukraine, stationing vast stockpiles of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles and tens of thousands of soldiers on the peninsula.
However, if indeed the Ukrainian military plans another counteroffensive in the direction of Crimea, it would not be the first time.
In the summer of 2023, the Ukrainian forces launched an ambitious counteroffensive with the goal of liberating Crimea. However, the Ukrainian ambitions broke on a defensive wall not seen on European soil since the end of World War II. Anticipating a Ukrainian thrust in the south, the Russian forces dug in miles of defensive works and laid hundreds of thousands of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. When the Ukrainian counteroffensive finally began, the armor spearhead could not get past the Russian defensive works. Despite some tactical successes, the Ukrainian counteroffensive fizzled out within weeks.
Since then, Russia’s hold on Crimea has remained firm. Now, however, a renewed wave of long-range strikes against the strategic peninsula suggests that Kyiv might be ready to try again.
About the Author: Stavros Atlamazoglou
Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University, an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a JD from Boston College Law School. His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.
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