A Ukrainian soldier repairs a drone in Donbas, Ukraine, on August 13, 2025. Ukraine has increased drone attacks on Russian-occupied Crimea. (Shutterstock/Jose Hernandez Camera 51)

How Ukraine Is Taking the Fight Back to Russia in Crimea

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Kyiv is forcing Moscow to choose whether to devote air defense resources to defending the Russian homeland or occupied Crimea.

Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014 with the seizure and annexation of Crimea. Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, the peninsula has served as a critical staging ground for operations in southern Ukraine. For Kyiv, degrading Russia’s position there has become a central strategic objective. 

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin has never accepted Crimea as settled Ukrainian territory. In 1994, Ukraine moved decisively to stop Russian-backed separatist leader Yuriy Meshkov from pulling the peninsula out of Kyiv’s orbit. The 2003 Tuzla Island Crisis showed that the Kremlin had not abandoned the effort, foreshadowing the larger confrontation to come. 

Ukraine’s Return to Crimea

Even before 2022, Ukraine’s military intelligence service, known as the Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), identified Crimea as a persistent threat. Ukrainian intelligence pushed for more aggressive operations well before the full-scale war, even as Washington tried to manage the risks of escalation. As one US official later said, “We always had to respect those red lines. But they hated that we had so many red lines.”

In August 2016, a Ukrainian military intelligence team, reportedly led by Kyrylo Budanov, who would later lead the organization, carried out a covert raid into occupied Crimea. Russian authorities said the clash left multiple Russian security personnel dead, alarming both Washington and Moscow. Then-Vice President Joe Biden warned Kyiv that “it cannot come close to happening again,” while Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Russia would “not let such things slide by.”

Since 2022, Kyiv has intensified efforts to weaken Russia’s grip on what Putin treats as both a strategic asset and a symbol of Russian power. The October 2022 attack on the Kerch Bridge marked a turning point. A truck bomb detonated on the bridge, igniting a fuel train, damaging key spans, and inspiring a viral Ukrainian song mocking the bridge’s supposed invulnerability.

Ukraine has continued to target the bridge and its supporting infrastructure. “Despite numerous Russian attempts to secure the peninsula-based assets, Ukrainian drones still manage to inflict destruction,” said Samuel Bendett in an interview with the author, an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security. 

In April, Ukrainian military intelligence claimed strikes on two landing ships and a radar station in Sevastopol Bay, underscoring the vulnerability of even heavily defended naval assets. Later that month, Ukrainian naval forces reportedly struck patrol boats guarding the Kerch Bridge crossing.

“It’s likely that no matter what kind of layered defenses the Russian military may have there, Ukraine’s military will find a combination of systems and tactics to take........

© The National Interest