09 December 2025
WEEKLY UPDATE ON THE SITUATION IN OCCUPIED CRIMEA ON DECEMBER 8, 2025
Main news of the week
▶ The Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported that the special unit “Ghosts” had struck enemy targets in Crimea. In particular, drones targeted a Russian Su-24 frontline bomber, an antenna housed in a radio-transparent dome, a 39N6 “Kasta-2E2” radar station, and a freight train, among other objects. The special unit also destroyed a MiG-29 fighter jet.
▶ In Alushta, the occupation administration has introduced a water supply schedule due to the low water level in the Izobilnenske Reservoir. If this trend continues, 2026–2027 may be the driest years in Crimea in recent times.
Crimes committed by the Russian Federation
▶ As of November 2025, Russia has unlawfully imprisoned 224 individuals in the occupied Crimea on ethnic, religious, and political grounds, including 133 Crimean Tatars.
▶ A brain tumor has been diagnosed in political prisoner Tofik Abdulgaziyev, who was sentenced by a Russian court to 12 years of imprisonment, his wife reported. Since March 2024, he has been hospitalized. At that time, he was diagnosed with disseminated pulmonary tuberculosis involving the intrathoracic lymph nodes, and later with several other serious illnesses.
▶ The occupation administration sentenced Nyara Ersmambetova, a mother of two, to 15 years of imprisonment in a general-regime penal colony and an additional 1.5 years of deprivation of liberty. She was detained in May 2025 on the seventh day after her mother’s funeral. The occupation authorities accused her of cooperating with the “ATESH” partisan movement and allegedly transmitting information about a fuel depot and air defense positions.
▶ Fifty-seven-year-old Crimean Tatar political prisoner Edem Smailov has been denied medical care for more than a year while being held in Penal Colony No. 1 in the Kostroma region. Earlier, Smailov complained of deteriorating eyesight, tinnitus, and severe dental problems. In 2020, a Russian court sentenced him to 13 years of imprisonment.
The use of occupied Crimea as a springboard for attacks on Ukraine and the militarization of the peninsula
▶ Activists of the “Yellow Ribbon” movement reported that the occupation administration is bringing participants of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine to Crimea to undergo internships in local administrations. This is presented as “training of managerial personnel,” but in reality, it involves appointing Russian citizens to administrative positions within municipal governance structures.
▶ At the “Artek” children’s center in occupied Crimea, a so-called “Kherson Region Day” was held. Representatives of the occupation authorities, volunteers, and activists from the temporarily occupied Kherson region, as well as Russian serviceman Denis Kozlov, were brought to the event. He spoke to children about his participation in the war and the activities of the “Pobeda” foundation, which he directs. After the meeting, children were engaged in weaving camouflage nets and writing letters to Russian soldiers.
▶ According to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian occupying forces carried out massive combined attacks on Ukraine over the course of the week. In particular, on the night of 6 December, Russia launched 653 strike UAVs of the “Shahed” and “Gerbera” types at Ukraine. The attack was carried out simultaneously from several regions of the Russian Federation, with some drones launched from Crimea.
The occupiers once again targeted energy infrastructure facilities in an attempt to leave Ukrainians without electricity and heat during the winter period.
The resistance movement of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea
▶For showing solidarity with Ukraine, Russia has already persecuted 1,642 people in the occupied territory of Crimea, imposing illegal administrative penalties such as fines and arrests.
▶ In honor of the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on December 6, activists of the “Yellow Ribbon” movement held an акция that covered Sevastopol, Simferopol, Yalta, Alushta, and other temporarily occupied territories. In particular, they distributed leaflets bearing the inscription “10.22.24,” which activists interpret as a cipher composed of three symbols from the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s alphabet.
▶ Agents of the “ATESH” movement continue covert surveillance of military equipment and personnel of an air defense unit in Sevastopol. In particular, activists documented the parking locations of Russian military equipment and identified the residences of some Russian officers. The collected information has been transferred to the Ukrainian Defense Forces.
The full-scale invasion has been marked by a sharp increase in acts of solidarity and resistance by residents of occupied Crimea against the Russian occupiers. Residents of the occupied territories unite in resistance movements such as the aforementioned “Yellow Ribbon,” “Crimean Combat Seagulls,” “Zla Mavka,” “ATESH,” or act individually. To suppress the local resistance movement on the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea after 24 February 2022, the occupiers began actively persecuting and subjecting Ukrainian citizens to administrative liability under the article on so-called “discrediting the Russian Armed Forces.”
The de-occupation of Crimea is an essential part of ending the war and restoring peace. Ukrainians are doing everything possible to stop the aggressor and protect the entire world from Russia’s criminal actions. This is not a local or regional issue — Russia’s aggression poses a threat to the whole world and the international order.