On the Russian-annexed peninsula of Crimea, armed resistance by the civilian population to the Moscow-installed self-government and to the deployed Russian soldiers is growing. Referring to the press service of the Ukrainian counter-intelligence service, Ukrainska Pravda news server reported on Tuesday.
“Confrontation between the occupation contingent and the pro-Ukrainian civilian population is growing on the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea. In particular, attacks on military targets using Molotov cocktails have become systematic. The organisers and perpetrators of most of these attacks are civilians who support Ukraine,” the Ukrainian website quotes from the intelligence report.
The head of the city’s pro-Russian administration, Mikhail Razvozzhayev, said on Tuesday that Russian forces had shot down a drone near Sevastopol. He said the drone exploded in a valley outside the city, where vegetation subsequently caught fire. Razvozzhayev did not mention any injuries or material damage. According to information on social media, Sevastopol residents had earlier warned that they had heard the explosion.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, the situation in Crimea is so serious that Russian soldiers in Crimea have been put on standby to make it easier to prosecute the perpetrators of the attacks. Suspects are arrested, dismissed from their jobs or simply disappear. This is said to be particularly the case for those who have refused to accept Russian citizenship.
In May this year, the Ukrainian website Censor.net reported on the case of a 16-year-old youth who told a poll in Yalta, in occupied Crimea, that he was not afraid of a counter-offensive by Kiev’s armed forces and supported Ukraine. Law enforcement officers there forced the boy to apologize on camera.
The news service notes that most of those detained and arrested are representatives of the Crimean Tatar people.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, where it has a strategic naval base, following a contested referendum in 2014 that was not recognised by the international community. Before that, it occupied it militarily, which it disguised as an uprising by newly formed militias and resistance to changes following the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych.
Since then, Moscow has considered Crimea its territory, but Ukrainians have repeatedly said they want to liberate and reintegrate the peninsula.
