A closer look at the recent Russian build-up in Crimea
By Michael Sheldon

From February through April 2021, Russia amassed troops and military equipment into training areas in Crimea and Voronezh. Within the Crimean Peninsula, troops from the 76th Air Assault Division and the 58th Combined Arms Army assembled in large camps at the Angarsky and Opuk training areas, respectively. Meanwhile, troops from the 35th Motor-Rifle Brigade of the 41st Combined Arms Army in Central Russia were the main movers to a training area on the outskirts of Voronezh. On April 22, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced that Russia would be withdrawing troops that had participated in the build-up.

Shoigu announced that the 7th, 98th, and 76th Air Assault Divisions, as well as personnel of the 41st and 58th armies would be returned to their permanent bases by May 1. Heavy weapons of the 41st Combined Arms Army, however, would remain at the training area near Voronezh in anticipation of the Zapad 2021 exercises in September. The Russian Ministry of Defense underplayed the scale of the deployment, claiming that “more than ten thousand” servicemembers partook in the exercises. According to Rob Lee, a Russia military expert and PhD student at King’s College London, the real number should be in the tens of thousands.

While most units headed to their respective gathering points, some units were spotted moving to undetermined locations, closer to mainland Ukraine. One unit was spotted moving to the peninsula from as far as the Russian far east, a trip that should take about a week by rail. Satellite imagery also revealed that military helicopters appeared at a previously disused air base just 85km south of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast.

Using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery provided by Capella Space, and open-source imagery posted online by people on the ground, the DFRLab analyzed the Russian buildup in the Crimean Peninsula.
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['Russia', 'Ukraine', 'Security', 'Crimea', 'Geolocation']