Why Is Russia Moving Air Defence Systems to Crimea? According to Atesh, a Ukrainian resistance organization formed in September 2022, Russian forces are now moving significant amounts of military equipment, notably air defense systems, into Crimea.
The group has been active in all occupied territories of Ukraine and inside of Russia.
The group has been active in carrying out acts of sabotage against the Russian military recently, having destroyed a major rail facility in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine on Sunday, April 27.
The group said its members had “destroyed” transformer equipment along the railway close to the town of Stanytsia Luhanska. Moscow’s units depend on this rail line for the transport of troops and other logistics, which is a significant blow to the ability to supply Russian troops at the front.
The Russian transfer of military hardware comes as reports quoting US President Donald Trump saying that he thinks Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is ready to cede control of Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal. Trump’s remarks come after this past weekend’s funeral of Pope Francis, during which the two presidents had a private, one-on-one meeting.
Russia had illegally invaded and occupied the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and has claimed it as its own ever since. Ukraine has not only vowed to retake this territory but, to date, has steadfastly refused any suggestion to recognize Russia’s occupation as legitimate in order to come to a peace settlement in the more than three-year-long war.
Why More Air Defense Now in Crimea?
The movement of air defense equipment into Crimea seems more disorganized than usual—even for the Russians—with Atesh operatives on the ground in the occupied areas reporting that the transporting of this equipment has seemed “often uncoordinated and chaotic.”
To date, Russian air defense units on the peninsula have been largely ineffective, with Ukraine regularly hitting numerous high-value targets in Crimea. These include naval vessels, Russia’s naval headquarters, the Dzhankoi and Saki air bases, and even some of Russia’s most modern and high-dollar air defense systems, like the Almaz-Antei S-400.
Ukraine does not have any major naval forces, but it has also used underwater and aerial drones, missile strikes, and other weapons repurposed for missions other than those for which they were designed. These attacks have forced Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet to withdraw most of its major surface combatants and submarines into port facilities located further to the east.
The continued use of different models of one-way attack drones by Ukraine has also continued to score major hits on Russia’s military. In addition to the drones, Ukraine’s Air Force (PSU) has been using its donated western-made French Dassault Mirage 2000 and US F-16s to inflict serious damage on Russian military units and facilities.
The Bridge is the Big Target
The prime motivation for moving air defense assets into Crimea – albeit in a haphazard manner – may be two-pronged.
One is that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been pushing for a three-day truce from May 8-10. This pause is to provide a pause in attacks to celebrate the Victory of World War II Day. The holiday always features a parade through Red Square, and the entire event has become Putin’s personal vanity project, making it a potential target for an attack.
Putin would also not want the parade disturbed by news of any attacks on Crimea, which is one of the motivations for the proposed ceasefire period. Another is that the three days of no hostilities give his soldiers in the field a chance to re-group and move into new positions without any possibility of being hit by a drone strike. Drone strikes have become the number one cause of casualties on the front lines.
For all these air defense assets transported into Crimea, Moscow’s primary concern is the Kerch Bridge that connects Crimea with mainland Russia.
The Atesh resistance group said in July 2024 that Russia had deployed additional air defense batteries to protect the Kerch Bridge from attacks out of Ukraine. The bridge supports both road and rail links and was built not long after Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014. When it opened in 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally conducted the ceremonial ribbon cutting.
Other than the Victory Day parade, Putin has made the bridge one of the highest-profile symbols of his efforts to subjugate Ukraine. From the viewpoint of the Ukrainian military, this makes the bridge a priority military target and a propaganda victory for Kyiv if it were to be brought down.
In late 2023, Vasyl Maliuk, the director of Ukraine’s SBU, the security service, said the bridge is “doomed,” telegraphing Ukraine’s long-running desire to destroy it. The Atesh group has also said the bridge “must be destroyed.” Those behind the lines have asked local residents to provide intelligence information on the locations of air defense systems, the movements of Russian forces, and the deployment of all military equipment in the area.
On Monday, the Atesh movement said, “We continue to monitor the actions of the Russians on the peninsula and pass on all important information to the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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