As of: March 17, 2024, 6:54 a.m
By: Karsten Hinzmann
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A recurring target of Ukrainian attacks: Russia's Crimean Bridge in the Strait of Kerch.
Without the intelligence of the Atesh partisans, Ukraine would have no chance of giving Russia hell.
(Archive image) © IMAGO/Vladimir Mordunov
They are the knife in the back of the Russian troops in Crimea: the Atesh partisans.
Now they want to have discovered a missile depot.
Sevastopol – The column of numbers reads very simply: 44.6876475, 33.5817732.
A red marker shines out of the corresponding image - as if there were a completely normal target there;
a destination that everyone knows – the new restaurant around the corner, for example.
The coordinates of this marker, however, represent life and death in equal measure: They probably mark a missile depot for Russian troops on the contested Crimean peninsula.
The Atesh partisans have thus identified and published a supposedly worthwhile target for the Ukrainian defenders.
Crimea could become a crucial battlefield in the Ukraine war, and Atesh is the thorn deep in Vladimir Putin's side.
The Atesh movement reported on its
Telegram
channel that its agents had infiltrated and scouted a missile depot near the Belbek military airfield in Crimea;
DefenseExpress
is currently writing about this
.
“As we know, R-73, R-27 and R-37 missiles are stored here, among other weapons.
They are being used to attack peaceful Ukrainian cities,” Atesh wrote in her statement.
The movement, which names itself after the Crimean Tatar word for “fire,” has apparently infiltrated the Russian army and is observing targets behind its lines;
It is intended to provide the crucial information for the Ukrainian victory, as the think tank Center for European Policy Analysis writes.
Enormous losses on the high seas: Black Sea Fleet in the crosshairs of the partisans
A missile attack with a cruise missile like Storm Shadow or the Himars multiple rocket launcher is a very expensive thing, an Atesh spokesman told the British
BBC
, as
t-online
reports.
“We cannot throw ammunition around indiscriminately like the Russians.
We have to verify the information we receive.” At this point, partisans can intervene in a decisive manner.
The defenders at sea are making up for Ukraine's failed land counteroffensive;
at least in part, as
Zeit Online
judged.
One theater of war is often forgotten and underestimated: the Black Sea - and the gradual destruction of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
The Ukrainian military said a third of them had been destroyed or damaged.
24 Russian warships and one submarine were put out of action.
Independent observers gave a slightly lower figure of 20 ships and one submarine.
The Crimean Tatars would definitely have played a large part in this.
They bribe members of the Russian Black Sea Fleet forces with money to obtain information about meetings, when ships will leave the country, and the like.
Gustav Gressel, military expert, told ZDF
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The Crimean Tatars' assault against the Russian occupiers also has historical background.
In the 18th century the peninsula was still in Crimean Tatar-Ottoman hands.
Today, Crimean Tatars only make up around 13 percent of the population there, as
ZDF
writes.
After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, a particularly large number of them left the peninsula for mainland Ukraine;
The relationship with the Ukrainians is also said to be tense, but the common enemy brings both of them together - and in Crimea both parties pull together in the belief that if Putin loses Crimea, he has lost the entire war.
By cutting off land routes to Crimea and attacking supply points with long-range weapons, one could try to make it untenable for Russia to hold Crimea, said military expert Gustav Gressel on
ZDF
, for example .
The conflict began in Crimea in 2014 and could end there at some point.
The Atesh movement, founded in the summer of 2022, probably played a crucial role in the Ukrainian successes in Crimea.
The forced recruitment of people from Crimea into Moscow's armed forces offered the emerging resistance movement a great opportunity to undermine the Russian army from within, writes Elina Beketova of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
The new old quality of war: Camouflage and deception as the be-all and end-all of a modern army
The partisans are part of a warfare that seemed to be history since the Second World War or at least since the end of the Cold War: camouflage and deception are once again among the general virtues of a modern army, explained, for example, Lieutenant Colonel Martin Winkler, head of the department " Evaluation” in the Army Command,
asked
in the Bundeswehr podcast
.
On the contrary, during operations in Afghanistan or Mali, armies tried, as Winkler said, to “openly show their presence and stabilize.”
This could be outdated in future military conflicts, the battlefield will become glassy and false leads will become even more important.
Deception has therefore already become a key success factor in the Ukraine war - the partisans in Crimea are said to have played a key role in exposing supposed depots as misleading.
The German newsman Winkler recognizes this as an effort by the Russians to provoke the Ukrainians into attacks in order to either exhaust their resources of long-range weapons or to determine their location based on the activity of the enemy positions.
International humanitarian law is intended to protect the civilian population
If regular soldiers are attacked by civilians in conflicts, the soldiers will act more brutally against the civilian population.
This has been shown, for example, by the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
At some point, in the minds of the soldiers, anyone who behaves suspiciously becomes a danger.
In Iraq, a cameraman was killed by American soldiers because they mistook his recording device for a rocket launcher, and combat drones were used to shoot at men digging on the side of the road at night because they were mistaken for terrorists hiding booby traps.
International humanitarian law aims to prevent such cases.
It was created as a binding rule between states to protect bystanders.
In principle, all soldiers should be clearly identifiable so that they can be distinguished from the civilian population, who are to be protected from atrocities.
Anyone who deliberately shoots civilians is therefore committing a war crime.
Such offenses are punished under international law.
Source:
Zeit Online
However, Atesh wants to achieve more than just gathering information, as
t-online
reports: The partisans are not only interested in observation, but also in active sabotage, as an Atesh comrade named “Ostap” explained to the portal.
“If someone is a plumber, he knows exactly how to screw pipes to harm the enemy.
He may be an electrician who knows where and how to twist the wires or a particular fuse to cause a short circuit and leave the crew management without lights.”
The basic aim of the resistance movement is to exert psychological pressure on the occupiers and to make their stay in the foreign territory of Crimea as unpleasant as possible.
This can also lead to almost comical actions, as 'Ostap' reported.
In February, residents played the Ukrainian national anthem over Bluetooth speakers at bus stops where Russian troops often pass.
They are currently calling on
Telegram
to boycott the current Russian presidential election.
The movement is striving for expansion and wants to recruit as many agents as possible who will cover not only the occupied Ukrainian territories but also the Russian Federation, writes journalist Beketova about Atesh.
Their regular agents help with logistics.
If weapons or explosives are needed, Atesh provides them.
New agents are initially given simple tasks, and the level of difficulty increases after each successful action.
As their confidence increases, new recruits are then assigned more complex operations.
Atesch's goal is clear: "Everyone naturally wants to contribute as much as possible to the liberation of the country, the occupied territories," says the Crimean Tatar-Ukrainian politician Mustafa Dschemilyev to
ZDF
.
“And now, as far as I know, their main focus is on doing as much damage as possible to the occupiers, blowing something up, destroying something.”