Russia-Ukraine war: Crimea, amid the panic of the population and the Russian bewilderment due to the attacks

August 9 was the dramatic date for thousands of Russian tourists who came to rest Crimeathe Ukrainian peninsula occupied by Russia in 2014 which Soviet propaganda called “the health center of the entire USSR”.

On this day, at one of the largest military airports in the area near the city of Saky, a series of explosions were recorded which, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, destroyed 8 Russian warplanes.

This event caused a wave of panic in the Crimea and many people decided to end their holidays there and urgently evacuate, when the war, which has lasted for almost six months, knocked on the peninsula’s door. Social media was filled with a myriad of videos of people packing their bags in panic.

But are explosions at a military airport so important that they cause so much fear? Here we must consider two key factors.

The first is the Russian propaganda that for 8 years told its citizens that Crimea is a fortress, an unsinkable aircraft carrier, which is better protected than the capital itself, Moscow.

State TV networks such as RT have shown the most technological and developed weapons that should have protected the peninsula from the hypothetical invasion. In general, this logic was the crucial idea of ​​the entire Putin regime: “I take away your civil and political liberties, but I guarantee you absolute security”.

bewilderment and fear

That is why when the Saky explosions occurred, the Russians who had this propaganda image of security were taken by surprise and horrified. It was revealed that the state they trusted so much was unable to deliver on its promise.

The second factor is the context of the event. The explosions of 9 August were not the first in the peninsula. On July 31, the Navy’s holiday day, in Sevastopol, the most important Russian naval base in Crimea, there was an attack on the Black Sea navy staff.

But as the impact was very modest and the official Russian media showed only a few destroyed bushes, no one took this episode seriously. However, Saky explosions followed later and people in Crimea realized that war is not a TV series.

Russian state propaganda claimed that the accident was caused by violations of fire prevention rules and has nothing to do with Ukraine.

But on August 15, other explosions were reported in two other places in Crimea: in a military warehouse near Dzhankoi in the north of the peninsula, and at another airport near Simferopol in the center.

The detonations of weapons in Dzhankoi lasted until the following day, August 16. Russia claimed that these two events were caused by the activity of Ukrainian sabotage groups.

This is where the Russians who emigrated to Crimea after the occupation in 2014 realized that when Ukrainian President Voldimir Zelensky says his country will fight for Crimea and take back its territory, they don’t seem like empty words.

mystery and silence

Military experts around the world have arguments about how the attacks were carried out. for now there are four different versions: US missiles, Ukrainian missiles, sabotage groups, local resistance.

Indeed nobody knows the truth for now. And if he says he knows, he’s lying.

The technical aspects of the attacks are not that important. Most importantly, before these explosions, Crimea was taboo. Russia through its former president Dmitri Medevedev has threatened a nuclear war should anything happen in Crimea. The West tried to avoid the peninsula issue because it was an uncomfortable topic.

Many thought that Ukrainian attempts to regain that land would cause the war to escalate. But Russia’s reaction to these attacks was very modest until they explained the explosions on 9 August a cigarette in a place where you could not smoke.

This situation broke the psychological barrier that existed in the world regarding Crimea.

Ukraine has shown that it is ready to fight for its territory. The West has seen that nothing happens if Ukraine does. And Russia? At least at the level of ordinary people, many have realized that Crimea can be lost. What justice and revenge for the 2014 occupation are drawing near.

The result of that all-important psychological change is panic on the rise in the Crimea. On August 16, Russian media announced the record number of cars that crossed the Crimean bridge. It seems that it was the first time that they have not lied: about 40 thousand cars left the peninsula in one day.

Locals who have been near that area in recent days have reported traffic jams of 15-20 kilometers at the entrance to the bridge. Videos of people fleeing the peninsula have gone viral.

What conclusion do we come to? For now, Ukraine is a long way from Crimea’s recovery. The technical aspects of the attacks on the peninsula remain unknown.

But what is obvious is that even with four episodes mentioned, Ukraine has won a very important psychological battle.

Russian propaganda and the state itself have lost their prestige because he could not guarantee safety of its “pearl in the colonial crown”. And it seems that Russians who came to Crimea after 2014 to enjoy life by the sea and the sun that people in other parts of Russia miss, have realized it’s time to go back.

The people who remained in the Crimea with each of these attacks will have less faith in the regime and more disappointment with reality. This appears to be a good pretext for Ukraine’s liberation of the peninsula from Russian occupation. What was the unsinkable aircraft carrier became the Titanic.

Special for Clarin

CB