03 April 2026

“Russia is paying a sustained and mounting price — in ships, infrastructure, and resources — to hold a peninsula it can no longer protect”

The European Policy Institute of Kyiv (EPIK) has published an article on Crimea, highlighting the occupied peninsula as a point of constant pressure: for the first time since 2014, Russia is in a defensive posture over Crimea.

The material states that Crimea is the Ukrainian territory that has been occupied the longest. At the same time, while between 2014 and 2022 the struggle was fought almost entirely by diplomatic means, following the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine has carried out at least 570 strikes on Russian military facilities on the peninsula.

For its part, since 2014, Russia has been turning Crimea into its military base — deploying S-400 systems, stationing new submarines with cruise missiles, upgrading airbases in Saky and Belbek, and using the so-called Crimean Bridge as a key facility for military supply.

And even though the President of the Russian Federation presented the occupation of the peninsula as “protection”, reality demonstrates the use of the territory of Crimea exclusively for military purposes.

The full article is available via the link: https://surl.li/ecrswu

The European Policy Institute of Kyiv was established in 2026. It is a new European think tank whose mission is to provide policymakers with rigorous analysis, strategic foresight, and forward-looking policy ideas that advance Ukraine’s European integration and regional security.