1 Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project 2022
Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment,
August 17
Karolina Hird, Kateryna Stepanenko, Angela Howard, George Barros, and
Frederick W. Kagan
August 17, 8:45 pm ET
Click here to see ISW's interactive map of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This
map is updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.
Russian military leadership is likely increasingly losing confidence in the
security of Crimea following recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian military
objects in Crimea. Russian sources reported on August 17 that Vice Admiral Viktor
Sokolov had replaced Admiral Igor Osipov as the commander of the Crimean-based Black
Sea Fleet (BSF).
The Russian information space, however, was evidently eager to maintain
a high level of secrecy regarding Sokolov’s appointment due to the claimed threat of
“terrorist danger” in Sevastopol.
Recent Ukrainian strikes (associated with Ukrainian
partisans and Ukrainian Armed Forces) on Russian military assets in Crimea, including the
headquarters of the BSF in Sevastopol, have likely placed Russian forces on high alert and
led to the restructuring of force composition, logistics, and leadership of the Russian
grouping in Crimea to mitigate the impact of further strikes. Ukraine’s Main Military
Intelligence Directorate, for example, reported that Russian forces are relocating dozens of
fixed and rotary wing aircraft stationed in forward airfields in Crimea to areas deeper in the
Crimean Peninsula and mainland Russia.
Russian leadership and the Russian nationalist information space have
become increasingly invested in framing recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian
military assets in Crimea as acts of terrorism in order to shift the information
narrative away from Russian violations of international law and calls on the
West to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Russian sources inaccurately
described the strikes on the BSF headquarters, an ammunition depot, and the Saki Airbase
as acts of terrorism. The Russian-appointed head of occupied Crimea, Sergey Askenov,
claimed on August 17 that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Crimea had
neutralized cells of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization (an Islamist fundamentalist political
organization that has historically been active in Central Asia and in Crimea amongst the
Crimean Tatar community and is banned in Russia) in Dzhankoi and Yalta.
Aksenov
accused the Ukrainian government of coordinating Hizb ut-Tahrir's operations in Crimea
without providing any evidence. Russian officials will likely increasingly link Ukrainian
partisan attacks against occupied territories with operations conducted by organizations
affiliated with Islamist extremism in an attempt to alienate the Ukrainian partisan
movement from the international community and undermine Ukraine’s calls to officially
designate Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Attacks against legitimate Russian military
targets fall well within the purview of legal use of force and are not acts of terrorism, nor is
there any evidence to suggest that Islamist extremists conducted these attacks.
