Ukraine, Crimea, and the Black Sea:
interview with Dmytro Pletenchuk, Ukrainian naval spokesperson
Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk has been a press officer and naval spokesperson for Ukrainian military operations in the south of the country bordering the Black Sea and Crimea ever since the turbulent aftermath of the Russian invasion of 2022. I asked him to comment about Crimea and the Black Sea and Ukrainian plans to liberate both.
But a little background first. Since the Russian “annexations” of Ukrainian territory in 2014 and its whole-scale invasion of Ukraine after February 24, 2022, Ukraine has never changed its position about pushing its land-grabbing attacker off all its territory. While all the Ukrainian land seized by Russia matters, Crimea and the Black Sea are of special existential importance.
Crimea is a large island-like rhomboid peninsula that drops into the Black Sea and to its east is bordered by the much smaller and shallower Azov Sea. Crimea boasts a huge deep-water port in the southern city of Sevastopol, which at present is controlled by the Russian navy.
It is important to keep in mind that a large part of the 2022 invasion of southern Ukraine came from Russian land forces based in “annexed” Crimea — supported by naval forces in Sevastopol and by the Russian air force from several airports all over the peninsula.
On the day this interview was conducted in the southern port city of Odesa, both the city and its region had suffered multiple attacks by Russian and Iranian missiles and drones from Crimea. Most if not all of these were shot down by air defenses in the Odesa region. But the day before, a large Russian missile hit the Odesa port area while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and visiting Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis were nearby. Additionally, daily Russian attacks are being launched from Crimea and from ships mainly based in Sevastopol.
Another important factor: when Russia grabbed Crimea in 2014, many of Crimea’s indigenous inhabitants, especially Tatars, a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic group, were forced to flee — leaving an overwhelmingly Russian population living in Ukrainian territory.
Also, surrounding much of Crimea is the Black Sea — Ukraine’s main corridor for export of agricultural products. How much exportation are we talking about? According to the European Commission, Ukraine’s agricultural products comprise some 10 percent of the world’s wheat, 15 percent of the corn, 13 percent of the barley and more than half the world’s sunflower oil market. From Russia’s bases in Crimean Sevastopol and Novorossiysk in the Russian Federation, the enemy navy is blocking this corridor. How Ukraine will regain ability to export through this corridor is of fundamental importance not only to Ukraine, but to those parts of the world that depend on its agricultural goods.
I asked Captain Pletenchuk how he thought Crimea would be liberated and, in particular, how the Russians, both civilian and military, could be induced to leave.
Captain Pletenchuk: “Regarding the liberation of our Crimea, how should the Russians leave? I can say that in fact, we have been openly talking publicly about this for more than a year. And not just the navy, but all of the top leadership of our country. We openly and loudly warn the Russians that they should leave Crimea as long as they have the opportunity to do so painlessly.”
“As for how it will happen: Of course, we have a plan to liberate our Crimean territory. This plan includes many distinct stages. And, of course, we are well aware that it is impossible to liberate the territory of our Crimea without liberating the Black Sea, and vice versa.”
“Obviously, maritime operations must be coordinated with land operations. Therefore, of course, it is impossible for the naval forces to get to Crimea without success on land and vice versa. Even now, you can clearly see the first components of the liberation of our Crimea in the form of the destruction of several [Russian] military targets in Crimea itself and Russian ships at sea.”
“We have destroyed several Russian warships, and we demolished some military facilities in Crimea. Our ultimate goal is to totally destroy all of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and Azov Sea region.”
Perhaps the most memorable development there was the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, early in the war. But many more Russian ships have been destroyed since then, including massive armored landing crafts necessary for Russia’s attacks on the southern Ukrainian coast. Military bases have been hit and several top Russian commanders killed. Many of Russia’s best planes and helicopters have also been downed over the Black Sea, Azov Sea and Crimea.
I was concerned about Ukrainian plans for Russian civilians’ departure from Crimea, especially in light of past centuries’ historical events. Ever since the Middle Ages and until the reign of Russia’s Empress Catherine, most of Crimea had been ruled by Crimean Tatars, who had ties to the Ottoman Empire and to the large Turkic-speaking communities extending all the way to western China. In May 1944, after the Soviets (including Ukrainian forces) removed German-led forces from Crimea a whole year before the end of World War II, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of all 240,000 Crimean Tatars to the far-away Uzbek SSR — even though many had fought in the Soviet army. Many of the deportees died in transit, and more succumbed to the horrible conditions in which they were placed. Would the fate of Russian civilians in Crimea be similar, under Ukrainian plans?
Captain Pletenchuk adamantly responded: “First of all, we don't and won’t practice this kind of thing. Second, we always comply with international humanitarian law in our activities.”
Pressing on this point, I asked how Russian civilians would be able to leave. After its 2014 annexation of Crimea, Russia built the huge 12-mile-long Kerch Bridge between mainland Russia and Crimea. Other than by sea, that became Crimea’s main access to supplies from Russia — that is, until the invasion of 2022, when Russia also seized a part of the south of Ukraine linking Crimea to Russia.
Captain Pletenchuk: “If the bridge is destroyed and the first isthmus is still free, they [the civilians] will be able to cross the isthmus through the mainland of occupied Ukraine. If we are already on the isthmus and the bridge is destroyed after that, then, of course, the Russians will be trapped. That goes without saying.”
But he also wanted to make clear that so far in this war, Russians and their sympathizers “always left the territories we have liberated before we arrived there. We have been very humanely and honestly warning them to leave for two years now,” he stressed.
“There was a recent [corroborating] statement,” he added, “by [Mustafa] Dzhemilev, the exiled representative of the Crimean Tatar people,” who, like many deported Crimean Tatars whose families had returned to Crimea after the Soviet Union collapsed, had been forced to leave Crimea yet again after 2014. “There have also been [warning] communications from President Zelenskyy, and there were also my messages about it, as well as many others.”
Pletenchuk, like all other Ukrainians I have talked to over the last month, is resolute about the need to keep fighting and remove Russian occupiers from Ukrainian territory. On Crimea, his message is crystal clear: ‘Russians — get out while you can!’