Ukraine says ‘operations in process’ to take back Crimea

Ukraine: Naval drones strike Sevastopol in Crimea

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A Ukrainian navy chief has admitted that Ukraine has got its sights set on Crimea. The peninsula was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, but with Moscow’s war effort running into problems, some have speculated over whether Ukraine can finally take the territory back. Now, Ukrainian navy chief Vice-Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa has warned the Russians that his forces have their eyes set on Crimea.

Speaking to The Times, he said: “There are many people in Crimea who are waiting for us to come back. The main thing is that these operations are in process. I even know where.”

He added: “Before February 24 [the date of Russia’s invasion last year], the proportion of our fleet’s potential to the Russian fleet was one to 12, but now it has increased threefold to one to four.

“Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, we have been protecting our shore. Now we are looking at the shore controlled by the Russians. We once thought that was unrealistic. Today it’s very real.”

While Vice-Admiral Neizhpapa is confident in his force’s ability, he is still conscious of the face that Ukraine is fighting against a much larger army and navy.

He added that drones could prove crucial at sea to help deliver blows to the Russian ships. Neizhpapa said: “We have to act in an asymmetrical way against a more powerful enemy. We must use any means to deprive them of their dominance and destroy their fleet.

“Everyone sees how much drones help us on the ground and destroy enemy equipment. So there is a desire to see how they would work at the sea.”

Neizhpapa graduated from Sevastopol’s naval academy and has spent much of the past 30 years at sea with Ukraine’s navy.

He has helped lead some of Ukraine’s major successes so far in the war, including the battle for Snake Island and the sinking of Russia’s flagship The Moskva in May last year.

“When we located this target, we chose the biggest one as the chances of hitting it were the highest. So we used two Neptune cruise missiles on this target. Of course, we understood that it was the Moskva because only the Moskva could possibly be that big.”

As Ukrainian troops plot ways to take Crimea both from the ground and at sea, Russia has issued threats in the direction of Kyiv.

On these key moments, he added: “There was no special operation to destroy the Moscow cruiser. I’m not going to tell you how we discovered this group of ships, but I will say that it was all done by the Ukrainian navy alone.

This week, Russia warned that of a nuclear attack in response if Ukraine attempts to seize.

Former Russian prime minister and Putin ally, Dmitry Medvedev, said: “As far as some serious offensives involving an attempt to retake Crimea are concerned, it is absolutely clear that this will serve as a basis for the use of all means of protection, including those provided for by the basic doctrine of nuclear deterrence, when the use of any types of weapons against Russia poses a threat to the existence of the state as such.”

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He added that “an attempt to split off part of the state would be tantamount to an encroachment on the existence of the state itself.”

Medvedev continued: “Therefore, draw your own conclusions: there are obvious grounds for using any weapons. Absolutely any.

“I hope our ‘friends’ across the ocean realise this.”

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