23 June 2026
Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on June 23, 2026
Main News of the Week
▶ According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on June 18 and during the night of June 19, Ukrainian forces struck railway bridges near Rozdolne and Vladyslavivka in occupied Crimea.
▶ Also, on the night of June 19, units of the Unmanned Systems Forces struck targets at the Hlibivskyi underground gas storage facility near the village of Dozorne on the Tarkhankut Peninsula in occupied Crimea. This is the only gas storage facility on the peninsula.
▶ Later, on the night of June 21, the Unmanned Systems Forces carried out follow-up strikes on a number of military and infrastructure facilities in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Among the targets were an oil terminal near Kerch, the Kasta-2E2 (in Kurortne district) and Nebo-U (in Kerch) radar stations, as well as gas compressor stations in Aromatne, Zhuravlivka, and Kliuchi, which were used to supply Russian troops.
▶ As of 23 June, a strike on a thermal power plant (TPP) in Kerch caused a fire in fuel storage tanks. As a result, power outages were reported across Crimea, including in Yevpatoria, Saky, Krasnoperekopsk, Dzhankoi, and the Krasnohvardiiske district.
▶ In response to the attacks, the occupation administration imposed restrictions starting June 22: reduced the operating hours of public transportation, stores, and restaurants; canceled mass gatherings; and suspended ferry service. In Sevastopol, on June 22–23, fuel sales were restricted – it will be available only to services essential to the city’s functioning.
▶ Also, amid the attacks, agents of the Atesh movement observed increased activity among representatives of the occupation administration and Russian security forces in Crimea, including the evacuation of their families and valuable property from the peninsula.
Crimes Committed by the Russian Federation
▶ As of June 16, 2026, 316 people in the territory of occupied Crimea are subject to the policy of political persecution, including 169 Crimean Tatars and 1 Karaite.
▶ Political prisoner Oleksandr Sizikov, a blind Crimean Muslim, was discharged from the Krasnoyarsk Regional Tuberculosis Hospital after his third medical examination to develop an individualized rehabilitation and habilitation program. As Sizikov himself reported in a letter, he is currently awaiting transfer back to the prison in Minusinsk. According to him, the medical commission confirmed the findings from April 2025 – complete loss of vision and stage III hypertension. As a reminder, the occupiers detained Oleksandr Sizikov in 2020 and accused him of participating in the organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Russia designated as “terrorist” and banned in 2003, and after the occupation of Ukrainian territories, illegally extended its legislation to those territories. He was later sentenced to 17 years of incarceration, with the first four years to be served in prison.
▶ Crimean Tatar Niyara Ersmambetova, sentenced by an occupation court to 15 years for alleged “high treason”, has gone on a hunger strike in pretrial detention. According to human rights activists, she began her hunger strike on June 8 due to unbearable detention conditions. She is being held in a cell that previously housed detainees with tuberculosis, and the toilet is not working. Ersmambetova also reports a deterioration in her health – elevated blood sugar levels and a rash on her body.
The use of occupied Crimea as a springboard for attacks on Ukraine and the militarization of the peninsula
Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion and spread its armed aggression throughout Ukraine, occupied Crimea has been used by Russia as a military base for spreading aggression in various forms. From the peninsula, the occupiers continue to launch attacks on the territory of Ukraine, including on civilian infrastructure.
▶ The Ukrainian Air Force reported that during the past week, the occupiers carried out another series of massive combined attacks on Ukrainian territory. In particular, they launched over 500 strike UAVs of the Shahed, Gerbera, and Italmas types, as well as Parody decoy drones, from various directions, including from the territory of occupied Crimea and the Black Sea. The enemy also launched an Iskander-M missile at Ukraine from Crimea.
▶ Yellow Ribbon activists report that the occupiers continue to militarize young people in Crimea. On June 18, the final of a tournament among eight school teams took place in Simferopol, during which students competed in UAV piloting skills. The organizers openly state that the project’s goal is to motivate young people to “serve on the front lines”.
The resistance movement of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea
▶ Activists of the Yellow Ribbon once again reminded everyone that Crimea is Ukraine and displayed the Ukrainian flag in Crimea.
▶ An occupation court sentenced a Crimean resident to 17 years in a maximum-security prison on charges of “high treason”. The man was accused of transferring funds to accounts and foundations that were collecting aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In total, he allegedly transferred more than 280,000 rubles. Additionally, he was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months of restricted freedom and a fine of 200,000 rubles.
The full-scale invasion was 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 are uniting in resistance movements such as “Yellow Ribbon”, “Zla Mavka”, and “ATESH”, or acting individually.
To suppress the resistance movement of local residents in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea after February 24, 2022, the occupation administration actively began to persecute and bring Ukrainian citizens to administrative liability under the article on the so-called discreditation of the Russian army.
De-occupation of Crimea is an integral 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. Since this is not a local or regional problem, Russia’s aggression poses a threat to the entire world and the international order.