Fortress Crimea. How and from whom will the peninsula be defended?
Ukraine and NATO countries led by the United States remain the main military threat to Crimea, which became part of Russia in 2014. This is the conclusion reached by the famous military publicist Vladislav Shurygin, whose material the editors of “PolitNavigator” brings to the attention of readers.
Writing any scripts in the spirit of Tom Clancy is a thankless task. And not only because the place has already been occupied by Clancy himself, but also, first of all, because all such scenarios, in the literal sense, correspond to the old military saying - “It was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines.” And yet, moving away from the adventure genre, we can consider the likely threats to Crimea, as well as the strengths and capabilities of the parties in a potential conflict.
Who might be on the list of potential opponents today?
Of course, first of all, this is Ukraine, which lost Crimea in 2014, and still does not recognize this loss, and in every possible way emphasizes its readiness to regain Crimea at any cost.
Of course, the threat to Crimea also comes from the armed forces of NATO countries and the United States, which are in full solidarity with Ukraine and are providing it with large-scale military assistance. In the Black Sea region, NATO is represented by Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, which in the threatened period will provide their infrastructure to NATO troops and themselves will take part in the war. In addition, Georgia closely coordinates its position with NATO. Its military significance is negligible, but its position must be mentioned.
To a certain extent, the threat also comes from Turkey, which, although a NATO member, pursues its own independent policy in the region and seeks to regain its status as a regional power, nostalgic for the times of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish leadership categorically did not accept the transfer of Crimea to Russian jurisdiction, which thwarted the Turks’ own plans to form a pro-Turkish Tatar autonomy in Crimea and divide Crimea according to the Cypriot scenario.
As we see, the enemy before us is quite formidable. First of all, the United States and NATO, whose combined forces are many times greater than our entire military group in the southwestern direction. The Turkish armed forces alone number more than 600 people. Turkey is capable of forming an expeditionary force of up to 000 troops in the Black Sea direction in a few months. And taking into account the armies of Bulgaria, Romania and the transfer of American expeditionary forces here, the size of this “international coalition,” as the Americans like to call such combined teams, can reach 100 people.
The second largest, but the first in terms of threat, is the Ukrainian army, which has deployed a group of more than 60 soldiers and officers in the areas bordering Crimea. At the same time, it is obvious that these 000 would be correctly added to the American coalition, which, in fact, can only be formed as active support for the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
In technical terms, these will be extremely heterogeneous forces. If the US Army can, without any stretch of the imagination, be called the advanced army of the world, the army of the 21st century, then the Turkish army, despite its large numbers, in technical terms has not moved much away from the armies of the second half of the 20th century. The Ukrainian army is in even worse condition than the Turkish one, experiencing an acute shortage of not only modern weapons technology, but weapons in general. The armed forces of Bulgaria and Romania are operetta armies, whose combat potential is more than conditional. Therefore, despite the large number, the combat potential of the probable invasion group is incomparable with it.
However, it can deploy up to 500 tanks, up to 300 guns and up to 200 combat aircraft, taking into account the strengthening of the United Air Force with American aviation.
A separate topic is the fleet. Today, the NATO fleet is represented here by the Turkish Navy, which is both quite modern and numerically superior to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Also, in agreement with the Turks, ships of other NATO countries - the USA, Great Britain and France - can be transferred here, which will allow NATO to have complete superiority at sea.
Under these conditions, one can, of course, imagine a certain hypothetical plan to isolate and defeat the Russian military group in Crimea using NATO Air Force and Navy forces, followed by a landing of joint American-Turkish-Bulgarian-Romanian forces in Crimea and a simultaneous attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Crimean isthmus. Can! But such a calculation, for all its scale and logic, is not correct for the simple reason that, firstly, such a conflict means a full-scale, in fact, world war, in which all strategic directions and theaters of military operations will be involved. And in this situation, the “Crimean issue” goes deep into the background, becoming a peripheral operation in which only the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Turkey and the Black Sea dwarfs can actively participate, with some support from the United States and NATO.
And secondly, this is where the “Crimea factor” comes into play, which in today’s circumstances becomes strategic.
If you look at the map of the Black Sea, you can immediately see that the Crimean Peninsula is “pushed” into it by almost a third and divides the sea into two basins. At the same time, the maximum strategic “depth” of these basins does not exceed 550 kilometers, and in a straight line from Crimea to the Turkish coast it is generally only 260 kilometers.
Just forty years ago, such ranges allowed Turkish and NATO ships to feel relatively confident while being outside the destruction zone of Soviet missiles. But today the situation has changed radically. The Russian army and navy are armed with the most modern missile systems, whose combat radii not only completely blocked the Black Sea, but also went many hundreds of kilometers deep into the territories of NATO countries.
Deployed in Crimea, they completely devalue any naval group that may try to approach the Crimean shores or strike from the Black Sea, being clearly in front of our detection and targeting means. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to detect and destroy our complexes in the mountainous and wooded areas of the southern coast of Crimea. And, given the many decades of engineering preparation of the area in Soviet times, the presence of dozens of underground shelters, forts, and positions is almost impossible.
What is the bottom line?
The bottom line is that NATO has extremely vague prospects for any successful operation in the Black Sea basin. And in the context of the further strengthening of the defense capability of Crimea, the accumulation of sufficient material reserves here to wage war, this is generally a scenario for a Hollywood fairy tale. In reality, there are no prospects of inflicting a military defeat on Russia here. And, even more so, there are no prospects for Ukraine to “return Crimea.” Crimea is ours!
And we are constantly working on improving the defense of Crimea. It must be said that Ukrainian military intelligence is closely monitoring our military infrastructure in Crimea and is trying to promptly identify all its changes. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, more than 32 thousand military personnel, 613 tanks and armored personnel carriers, 162 artillery systems, about 100 combat aircraft, 56 helicopters, 16 coastal complexes, 34 warships and six submarines are deployed in Crimea today. But bare numbers, as has already been said, have a very conditional meaning. They must be supplemented by such important parameters as the combat readiness of the troops, their training, the saturation of modern equipment and, of course, their high moral and psychological state.
Most recently, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov revealed data on the composition of the Russian Armed Forces in Crimea. On the peninsula, as Gerasimov put it, a “self-sufficient group of troops” was created, which included a naval base, an army corps and 2 divisions - one air defense and the other aviation. The Russian Black Sea Fleet was also replenished: it included 6 submarines, 3 divisions of the Bal and Bastion coastal missile systems. In addition, the frigates Admiral Essen, Admiral Grigorovich and Admiral Makarov, armed with Kalibr cruise missiles, are now assigned to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. By 2020, the Black Sea Fleet plans to have 24 Kalibr missile carriers.
Quite recently in Crimea, the second anti-aircraft missile regiment armed with the S-400 air defense system went on combat duty.
It is no coincidence that it was in this region that our MiG-31 interceptors with the Kinzhal hypersonic missile systems went on experimental combat duty.
Therefore, let's not take bread from Tom Clancy. Military science fiction is the domain of science fiction writers. And we are realists. And Crimea is ours!
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