Ukraine Pounds Occupied Crimea

Once again, the Ukrainian military has reached out and touched a key Russian commander, in an audacious missile strike that left the Kremlin speechless and pro-war Russian commentators reeling, and which was one more indication that Russia still hasn’t figured out how to protect even its most senior military leaders in Ukraine, 19 months into the war it started.

The attack left the Black Sea Fleet HQ mangled and pouring thick black smoke, and was evidently part of Kyiv’s larger strategy of degrading Russian occupation forces through a series of decapitation strikes and targeted assassinations carried out against military and political leaders in Ukraine, occupied Crimea, and Russia itself, designed to weaken enemy will and sap morale from the top down. If Russia’s apocalyptic propaganda is any indication, it’s working.

On Monday, Ukrainian special operations forces released a statement confirming that on Friday they killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Adm. Viktor Sokolov, along with 34 other officers, all of whom were meeting at the Sevastopol headquarters at the time of the attack. Ukraine said the strike was timed precisely for that meeting, based on intelligence gathered by Crimean resistance fighters. 105 other people were also wounded in a strike that decimated Russia’s Black Sea Fleet leadership, literally shearing the roof off a building symbolizing Russia’s imperial aspirations in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Putin in 2014.

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