In terms of international law, all Russian annexations in Ukraine are equal: they are considered illegal. But are there nuances of approach, among the direct and indirect actors of the conflict, when it comes to Crimea, forcibly absorbed by Russia in 2014? This question resurfaced due to the attack on the Crimean strategic bridge – which was not claimed by Ukrainian forces. It led to a violent Russian response on Monday, October 10, with the indiscriminate shelling of several cities in Ukraine.
Was this partial destruction of the structure linking Crimea to Russia an isolated attack, or the beginnings of an attempt at reconquest by kyiv? The Russian reply sounds no matter what, like a warning likely to “changing the nature of warfare”estimated Emmanuel Macron during the day, after a new appeal to the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Attached to Russia in 2014 after a sham referendum, Crimea has a historical, cultural and emotional charge for the Kremlin that the occupied territories of the Donbass, Kherson and Zaporijia regions do not have, where recent consultations of the same nature. “In the hearts and minds of people, Vladimir Putin explained in March 2014, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. » The Russian leader did not hesitate, then, to use a bold comparison with German reunification.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, the fate of the peninsula, spared by the fighting, seemed disconnected from that of the rest of Ukraine. kyiv’s allies have certainly never recognized the annexation of Crimea, but until now they considered, unofficially, that it constituted a special case, as it seemed inconceivable to take it back by force. At the start of the invasion in February, Vladimir Putin even demanded, in exchange for a ceasefire, that kyiv recognize the peninsula’s belonging to Russia.
“A very strong temptation”
Even before the attack on the Crimean bridge, the annexation of the occupied Ukrainian territories to the east and the counter-offensive of the Ukrainian forces had put the region back at the heart of the war. “The annexation of new territories, which suffer more or less the fate of Crimea, has somewhat trivialized the status of the peninsula”, analyzes a diplomatic source. Above all, Moscow’s political coup, barely concealing its military difficulties, has strengthened the Ukrainians’ desire to regain all of their territory, including Crimea. The sequence of events since the partial destruction of the Kerch bridge confirms this hypothesis and the risk of further escalation. “This attack demonstrates that the takeover of Crimea is a very strong temptation on the part of the Ukrainianssays a diplomat. The Russian response also shows that Putin will not sit idly by, let alone a nuclear response. »
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