Starry Aspirant

Since the end of July, a series of attacks, both large and small, have been reported on Russian military facilities across Crimea. The most spectacular were two large explosions at a Russian airbase near Saky on August 9th, followed a week later by the detonation ammunition depot at Dzankoy, further north. Before and after this, smaller-scale drone attacks have been reported on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Ukraine has not explicitly admitted responsibility of these actions, and it is not clear how all of them were achieved—whether by Ukrainian special forces, local resistance groups or long-range missiles—and, at first, Russia tried to play down their military significance, attributing some to negligence. However, alongside a broader switch in Ukrainian tactics over the same period, permitted by the supply of more modern long-range rocket artillery systems by Ukraine’s Western backers, the events in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, underscore Ukraine

Inside the Russian occupation The US authorities have information that Russia continues to prepare “mock referendums” in the areas of Ukraine that it holds, according to John Kirby, a national security official, speaking in late August. Soon after the launch of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, Russian forces quickly took control of large areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the south-east. These were among the most notable successes of the early phase of Russia’s military campaign, which it has found harder to replicate elsewhere. Since then, there have been regular reports, including from the local administrations installed by Russian forces, that referendums on joining Russian—along the lines of the flawed plebiscite organised in Crimea ahead of its annexation in March 2014—are to be organised in newly taken areas, as well Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Russia has been in de facto control since 2014-15. One plan envisions merging these areas into a sing

In early August the US authorities signed off on large packages of military and fiscal aid to Ukraine, worth US$5.5bn in total. This is the latest funding drawn from the US$40bn sum agreed by the US Congress in May. The security assistance element, worth US$1bn, provides significant quantities of munitions and equipment, ahead of a planned Ukrainian counter-offensive in the strategically important south-eastern region of Kherson. This is the largest such drawdown of military aid under US presidential authority so far. In particular, the US will supply ammunition for the modern surface-to-air systems (NASAMS) and mobile long-range rocket systems (HIMARS), the deployment of which in recent weeks has produced some success for Ukrainian forces in destroying ammunition dumps, control-and-command posts, and rail links in Russian-occupied areas, so making it difficult for amassed Russian artillery to sustain a high intensity of fire. This takes to US$11.8bn the total of US military assistance