Law, Power, and Justice

On June 21, the governor of Russian-occupied Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, suspended gasoline sales to civilians and announced that only state and government agencies would receive fuel

In May, Ukraine’s defense ministry announced that a strategic “logistics lockdown” would turn Crimea from a peninsula into an island isolated from mainland Russia

Their range extends Russian supply lines by forcing military logistics to bypass the most cost-efficient routes within the strike zone. Russia is thus compelled to reroute convoys through circuitous detours, largely from the north.

We know that larger contingents of FSB personnel [Russia’s principal domestic security] are in Crimea, probably to deal with popular dissent.

If you completely trap someone and you block off all regress routes, then it changes the calculus for the adversary. Generally, you’ll want to leave an egress so that an adversary has an incentive to leave as opposed to dig in their heels and fight to the end.”

By threatening this Russian fortress, Ukraine is sending a message to the Russian people that President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the peninsula did not deliver the security that he promised in 2014.