Crimea Shows What Ukraine Can Do
The success of Ukraine’s counterattacks into Crimea may be the strongest argument for allowing Kyiv to fire long-range weapons into Russia. What Ukraine has accomplished in the occupied peninsula proves that strikes into Russian territory could save many Ukrainian lives and put Vladimir Putin on his heels.
The U.S., Britain and France currently provide Kyiv long-range weapons with the caveat that Ukrainian forces not fire them onto Russian soil. While Moscow considers Crimea—the first piece of Ukrainian territory it occupied in 2014—a part of Russia, the West correctly doesn’t. The fighting in Crimea proves that when given the tools and the freedom to use them, Ukraine can counterattack in a way that diminishes Mr. Putin’s war machine.
Ukrainian forces wrought impressive damage on the peninsula with domestically produced weapons as early as April 2022. After Western allies gave Ukraine long-range weapons last year and indicated Ukraine had permission to use them on Russian occupied territory, Kyiv’s efforts became especially efficient.
Last September, Ukraine used Storm Shadow missiles to hit Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol. This May, Ukrainian forces hit the airfield in Belbek with Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMs, taking out two of Russia’s valuable MiG-31 fighter jets. That month Ukraine also struck a Russian Air Forces communications center in Alushta with ATACMs. In June, Ukraine successfully launched ATACMs at Russian air defense systems in Yevpatoria and Chornomorske, both in western Crimea, and at a surface-to-air system in Dzhankoi, in the north. Crimea, which Mr. Putin has called the “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” started taking on water.
These attacks—and those Ukraine carried out with its own weapons—forced Russia away from positions from which it had been easily pounding Ukraine, killing people and destroying hospitals, schools and power plants. Last October, Russia hurried its Black Sea fleet from Crimean Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, inside its legal borders. This move and the general downgrade of Russia’s might on the peninsula allowed Ukraine to resume maritime exports of grain from its southern ports in May. For much of the war, Russian positions in Crimea allowed Moscow to hit civilian centers in Odesa, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia. This summer these towns suffered far fewer attacks.
Ukraine achieved all of this by attacking Crimea, which is close to its territory unoccupied by Russia. If the U.S. greenlit Ukraine using ATACMs to strike at airfields deep in Russia, Moscow’s reach could shorten dramatically. More planes now carrying bombs to kill Ukrainians would have to move farther away. Russia’s air force would be able to fly fewer sorties, and those that reached Ukrainian cities would take longer to get there, giving civilians vital time to seek shelter.
If Ukraine could launch long-range weapons at targets in Russia, the costs of the war would rise for Moscow. Ukraine’s ability to hit ammunition depots, fuel-storage facilities, training bases, logistics hubs and manufacturing sites that support Russia’s war machine would leave Mr. Putin short on supplies to carry out his war of aggression.
Perhaps most important, it would scare the Kremlin. Moscow would always have to wonder where Ukraine might hit next. A fearful Mr. Putin would be a weaker Mr. Putin, perhaps a less beastly Mr. Putin. He’d have to consider whether he was leaving Russia vulnerable and worry that his own people might start noticing the disaster of a war he brought upon their country.
Ukraine—respectfully but impatiently—awaits consent from its Western allies to use the long-range weapons they have supplied to defend itself to the fullest. Legally, Kyiv has every right to use them on Russian soil. The United Nations Charter affirms “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member” of the U.N.
The longer Washington waits to give Ukraine permission, the more civilians will die, towns will be obliterated, and Ukrainian ranks will be depleted. It’s past time for President Biden to stop this needless bloodshed.
Ms. [sic from The Wall Street Journal] Husarska is a journalist who writes regularly from Ukraine.
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