{"id":10489,"date":"2026-06-28T18:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/10489\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:41:06","slug":"crimea-will-decide-the-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/10489\/","title":{"rendered":"Crimea will decide the Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"

What, according<\/a> to Vladimir Putin, is Russia\u2019s Temple Mount? The answer to this quiz question is: Crimea. It has \u201cinvaluable civilizational and\u00a0even sacral importance for\u00a0Russia\u201d, Putin remarked<\/a> in 2014, \u201clike the\u00a0Temple Mount in\u00a0Jerusalem for\u00a0the\u00a0followers of\u00a0Islam and\u00a0Judaism\u201d. Yet, for all its \u201cspiritual\u201d worth, it is the peninsula\u2019s strategic value that is likely looming in the Russian President\u2019s thinking these days.<\/p>\n

On Friday, local authorities declared<\/a> a state of emergency after weeks of sustained Ukrainian air strikes. Kyiv\u2019s campaign to isolate<\/a> Crimea has battered the area\u2019s transport, military and energy infrastructure<\/a>, leaving residents grappling with fuel shortages<\/a> and rolling blackouts<\/a>. Civilians have subsequently complained<\/a> of a lack of government preparation.<\/p>\n

Crimea\u2019s strife is an embarrassment for the Kremlin, disrupting the start of tourist<\/a> season and prompting inhabitants<\/a> to flee from territory that Moscow has endeavored to portray as safe. The peninsula holds deep personal and political significance for Putin: he has argued that it \u201chas always been an\u00a0inseparable<\/a> part of Russia\u201d and that the 1954 transfer<\/a> of territory to Ukraine constituted an injustice<\/a> in need of correction.<\/p>\n

The 2014 annexation sent his approval ratings soaring<\/a>, fueled<\/a> a wave of patriotic fervor, and was cast as the restoration<\/a> of Russia\u2019s great power status. It is the territorial acquisition most closely identified with the man himself and its loss would be a political as well as a military blow, puncturing one of the central claims to Putin\u2019s legacy and \u201clegitimacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Crimea has also played a pivotal strategic role in the war, providing the base from which Russian forces launched their 2022 offensive into the south of Ukraine. Isolation operations, such as the one being carried out by Ukraine, often precede an attempt to seize the territory. Yet, in this instance, that seems improbable, with Kyiv likely lacking the resources for anything more than holding a small area, even if it did launch an amphibious assault.<\/p>\n

Rather, these attacks form part of Ukraine\u2019s plan<\/a> aimed at pressuring Moscow to come to the negotiating table. With the Kremlin continuing to drag its feet, Ukraine\u2019s Crimea campaign has reportedly<\/a> taken Putin by surprise and shattered his illusions at a time when his generals were providing overly optimistic predictions for territorial gains in the Donbas. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also reveled<\/a> in seeing Russia being forced to redeploy<\/a> air defense systems to Moscow<\/a> and Crimea \u201cat the expense of weakening other sectors of their territory and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n

Strikes offer further military advantages by disrupting Russian supply lines to occupied Ukraine. With Kyiv\u2019s attacks sabotaging alternative logistics routes through Russian-held territory, Crimea \u2014 and the Kerch Bridge \u2014 has become an increasingly<\/a> critical artery for supplying Moscow\u2019s forces along the Dnipro. As Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has noted<\/a>, \u201cthere is a direct correlation between how much we strike logistics and the number of assault operations taking place on the front line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attacks have pushed<\/a> out Moscow\u2019s remaining Black Sea Fleet command and control units to Novorossiysk. Control over Crimea is key to disrupting supplies in and out of Odesa and cutting off access to the Sea of Azov. Kyiv seeks<\/a> to isolate the peninsula entirely while systematically damaging critical infrastructure, thereby creating siege conditions for inhabitants. British intelligence assesses<\/a> that the degradation of Russian air defenses has expanded Kyiv\u2019s opportunities for attack. The bridge, a potent symbol of Crimea\u2019s integration into Russia, has already been temporarily shut<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From Catherine the Great\u2019s 1783 annexation<\/a> to Putin\u2019s over two centuries later, the peninsula is of such strategic importance that, according<\/a> to former US Army Europe commander Ben Hodges, whichever side controls Crimea wins this war. Ukraine is demonstrating that while Russia may possess Crimea, this is not the same as controlling it. And for the Russians there? In the words<\/a> of Fedorov, \u201chell is beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What, according to Vladimir Putin, is Russia\u2019s Temple Mount? The answer to this quiz question is: Crimea. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[426,25,26,319,983,33,35],"class_list":["post-10489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-crimea","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-war","tag-uncategorized","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelensky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}