02 September 2026
Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on September 2, 2026
Main news of the week
▶ On August 26–27, the Ukrainian Defense Forces struck a UAV command post in Olenivka and an area where russian army personnel were concentrated in Voskhod.
▶ On August 28, the Ukrainian Defense Forces struck a storage and launch site for russian military strike drones in Hvardiiske and a radio electronic warfare complex near Znamianka in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
▶ Crimean Tatars Enver Chaush and Muslim Mambetov from Yevpatoriia were held in complete isolation for over 20 months at Simferopol Pretrial Detention Center No. 2, with no contact with their families. The men are accused of so-called high treason for allegedly passing information to Ukrainian intelligence agencies and face up to 20 years in prison.
Crimes committed by the russian federation
▶ As of September 2, 2026, 316 people in occupied Crimea are subjected to politically motivated criminal persecution, including 169 Crimean Tatars and 1 Karaite.
▶ Yalta resident Georgy Artamonov was convicted of allegedly making “public calls against russia’s security”, marking the first such case in Crimea. The occupiers have so far concealed the exact verdict and Georgy’s actions.
▶ In Yevpatoriia, russian security forces detained a local resident born in 2002 over comments on social media. The man is accused of alleged “incitement to extremism” for insults and calls for violence against russians. He faces up to five years in prison.
▶ In the temporarily occupied Crimea, russian security forces detained two local residents, born in 1968 and 1974, on charges of allegedly gathering information for the Ukrainian military. The men are accused of supposedly passing on data about russian Ministry of Defense facilities, distributing pro-Ukrainian materials, and setting up caches of explosives.
The use of occupied Crimea as a springboard for attacks on Ukraine and the militarization of the peninsula
▶ The Ukrainian Air Force reported that, over the course of the week, the occupiers carried out another series of massive combined attacks on Ukrainian territory. Specifically, they launched more than 1,158 attack UAVs of the “Shahed,” “Gerbera,” and “Italmas” types, as well as “Parodia” decoy drones, from various directions, including from the territory of occupied Crimea and the Black Sea. They also launched 3 Onyx anti-ship missiles, 2 X-59/X-31P guided air-to-surface missiles, and 1 Iskander-M ballistic missile.
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 resistance movement of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea
▶ Ksenia Svetlishina, an activist with the Yellow Ribbon civic movement, was unlawfully transferred from Pretrial Detention Center No. 1 in the temporarily occupied city of Simferopol to the russian city of Vologda, where prisoners’ correspondence is strictly restricted.
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.