09 September 2026
Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea on September 9, 2026
Main News of the Week
▶ On the night of September 6-7, 2026, the Ukrainian Defense Forces struck a Russian Su-24 aircraft in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
▶ The Ukrainian military struck a number of military facilities of the Russian occupation forces. A Russian BK-16 boat, designed for transporting and landing troops, was hit in Sevastopol. The destruction of the Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare system has also been confirmed.
▶ Russian security forces are illegally detaining Crimean Tatar Vlada Sagermanova and her boyfriend Oleh Germanenko in Pretrial Detention Center No. 2 in Simferopol; they are accused of so-called high treason.
▶ Anatoly Chernyshov, head of the Russian military fund “People’s Front”, was killed in temporarily occupied Crimea. He had been raising funds and aid for the Russian occupation army.
▶ The occupiers have illegally collected more than 1.7 million tons of Ukrainian grain in the temporarily occupied Crimea. Russia plans to increase this figure to over 2 million tons, while acknowledging problems with the sale and storage of the harvest.
Crimes Committed by the Russian Federation
▶ As of September 9, 2026, 316 people in occupied Crimea are subjected to politically motivated criminal prosecution, including 169 Crimean Tatars and 1 Karaite.
▶ A so-called court in Crimea sentenced a resident of the village of Foros to 18 years in a maximum-security colony prison on charges of “high treason”. The man is accused of speaking out against the war and allegedly photographing a building of a Russian law enforcement agency and passing the photos on to the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
▶ In the temporarily occupied Crimea, a 34-year-old Russian citizen was detained on suspicion of collaborating with Ukrainian intelligence. He is accused of high treason and planning a terrorist attack in Simferopol. According to the occupation investigation bodies, the man passed on information about Russian military facilities and the results of missile strikes, and planned to blow up a military medical facility.
▶ In the temporarily occupied city of Sevastopol, a 16-year-old teenager will stand trial on charges of allegedly participating in the activities of an organization considered terrorist by Russia. According to the occupation investigation, in February 2026, the boy contacted a “curator” via Telegram channels and, on the curator’s orders, allegedly photographed the city’s infrastructure facilities. The minor was detained by the FSB and is currently in custody.
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 991 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 2 X-59/69 guided air-to-ground missiles, 1 Kh-31P air-to-surface missile, 2 P-800 Oniks anti-ship missiles and 2 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles at Ukraine from Crimea and the Black Sea.
The resistance movement of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea
▶ Agents of the ATESH resistance movement infiltrated the strategic “Fiolent” plant in the temporarily occupied city of Simferopol. Members of the resistance movement managed to gather information about the plant’s operations and its ties to the Russian military-industrial complex. This plant is critically important to the occupiers, as it manufactures navigation equipment and control systems for Russian military ships and armored vehicles.
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.