It has been nearly 10 years since armed individuals in unmarked uniforms seized the building of the Crimean Supreme Council, the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as well as the Simferopol airport, the Kerch ferry crossing, and other strategic objects, while also blocking the actions of Ukrainian forces in February 2014.
Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that these were Russian military forces. Following the unrecognized "referendum" on the status of the peninsula, in which Russia incorporated Crimea, President Putin declared the "annexation" of Crimea to Russia on March 18. International organizations condemned Russia's actions and deemed the occupation and annexation of Crimea illegal. The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada officially declared the date of the temporary occupation of Crimea and Sevastopol by Russia as February 20, 2014. In March 2021, Vladimir Zelensky approved by decree the "Strategy for the De-occupation and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Crimea." This document provides for both diplomatic and military measures to restore Ukraine's territorial integrity.
The full-scale invasion of the Russian army into Ukrainian territory has further exacerbated the already difficult situation with human rights violations in temporarily occupied Crimea. Russian forces and representatives of the occupying authorities have intensified repression day by day, suppressing freedom of speech and pro-Ukrainian positions. The Russian authorities' announced "partial mobilization" in September 2022 has also affected residents of occupied Crimea. In some settlements and areas where Crimean Tatars live, the majority of conscription notices were distributed to them. The conscription and mobilization of Crimean residents into the ranks of the Russian army constitute a war crime. Another war crime is the involvement of Crimean residents in hostilities against Ukraine.
Religious Muslims, in particular, suffer from the Russian occupation of Crimea, as the occupying authorities label them as terrorists, condemning them to unprecedented terms of imprisonment. The main politically motivated criminal persecutions of Crimea's residents fall into three cases: Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Noman Chelibidzhikhan Battalion, and Jehovah's Witnesses. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international political Islamic party recognized as a terrorist organization by the Russian Supreme Court in 2003, but it operates legally in Ukraine and most countries worldwide. The court in Rostov-on-Don issues verdicts in these cases, with terms reaching 19 years. On June 1, 2022, the Russian Supreme Court also recognized the Noman Chelibidzhikhan Battalion as a terrorist organization. Over the years of Crimea's occupation, at least 16 people have been accused of being affiliated with this organization. Of these, 13 have been sentenced, with a total term of 93 years and 6 months. In 2017, the Russian Supreme Court declared the religious organization Jehovah's Witnesses extremist, prohibiting its activities in Russia and occupied Crimea. The activities of Jehovah's Witnesses are permitted in the vast majority of countries worldwide. In occupied Crimea, 19 Jehovah's Witnesses are being persecuted, and criminal proceedings on five of them began in the second half of 2022.
Illegally annexed by Putin in 2014, the peninsula served as a springboard for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The territory of occupied Crimea allows Russian military forces to threaten Ukrainian positions from the south. Crimea houses a base from which drones, transferred to Russia by Iran, are launched, command centers are deployed, and numerous other military facilities exist. According to the Institute of Black Sea Strategic Studies, the following were launched from the territory of Crimea and the adjacent waters during the first 9 months of 2023:
- 230 units of sea-based cruise missiles of the "Caliber" type;
- 590 strike UAVs of the "Shahed-136/131" type;
- 40 ballistic missiles of the "Iskander" type;
- 17 anti-ship missiles P-800 "Oniks."
Russia has turned Crimea into a significant logistical center to support the conduct of the war. These are legitimate targets for Ukraine's strikes.
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