Russian propaganda resources, citing an article by Stephen Bryan in the Asia Times, claim that the Ukrainian strikes on Crimea have no actual purpose, but as these attacks intensify, one can expect Russia to respond harshly with shelling of Kharkiv, Odesa or Kyiv.

However, first the readers should pay attention to the author of the article, Stephen Bryan. It is regularly marked by the “washing out” of Russian narratives about the need to establish peace on Russian terms, “demilitarization”, etc. Brian also published a lot of pro-Russian materials on the social network Substack, from where Asia Times took them.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security at the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine writes that the temporarily occupied peninsula is an important logistics, command center and the location of concentration of Russian occupation forces, aviation and navy attacking Ukraine. Ukrainian strikes against these targets cause significant damage, reduce pressure on the Ukrainian Defense Forces, exhaust the Russian military and spare civilian lives.

And the promotion in the West of narratives about the supposed “unprofitability of attacks on enemy targets in Crimea” and “escalation” is intended to sow doubts in international public opinion about the need to maintain and increase support for the Defense Forces. We previously refuted information from another article by Stephen Bryan in Asia Times that France had allegedly made an official decision to send its troops to Ukraine.