Russia has practically lost its ability to use occupied Crimea as a full-fledged naval base, as its ships can no longer safely base themselves on the peninsula, the Ukrainian Navy announced.
At the same time, Moscow continues to use the Crimean military infrastructure to maintain its forces and strike Ukraine, mainly from the air.
This was stated by the spokesman for the Ukrainian Navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk, OBOZ.ua reported.
Pletenchuk noted that after the systematic work of the Ukrainian forces, Russia can no longer use the occupied Crimea as it did before.
“They have effectively lost Crimea as a naval base“, the spokesman said. According to him, there can be no question of basing the Russian fleet on the peninsula at the moment. For Russia, this means the loss of an important element of military infrastructure that previously allowed it to maintain a significant part of the naval group directly off the Ukrainian coast.
The Ukrainian strikes have forced the Russian naval forces to change their approaches to using Crimean facilities and to move ships and assets to areas that are currently considered safer for them.
The Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was occupied by the Russian army in 2014. Kiev has repeatedly said that it will not recognize the Russian occupation during negotiations with Vladimir Putin on a ceasefire.