Summit on Crimea to be held
The Crimea Platform summit will be held virtually today.
The summit aims to mobilize support for the Crimea region to be returned to Ukraine following its annexation by Russia in 2014. While Crimea has remained firmly under Russian control, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has raised the prospects of challenging Russian control should Ukraine achieve significant battlefield success. While the war has so far been wholly fought on territory controlled by Ukraine, an explosion at Russia’s Saky Airfield in Crimea—attributed to Ukraine—has shown that it is willing to challenge Russian control of Crimea.
Whether Ukraine will attempt to retake Crimea will largely depend on its battlefield success elsewhere—such as its planned counteroffensive to retake the city of Kherson. The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky stated that there will be no end to the war without the return of Crimea. Should Ukraine succeed, Russian control of Crimea is likely to loosen as its military and logistical facilities in the region will be in range of Ukraine’s western weapon systems such as HIMARS. Contributing to this ability is that Western and Ukrainian reservations about striking Russian territory are less present for Crimea as the region is recognised as part of Ukraine.
