Alexander Query

Pokrovsk, a key target in Russia’s strategy to capture Ukraine’s Donbas, faces an urgent evacuation deadline. With Russian troops advancing to within 10 kilometers and artillery fire intensifying, authorities warn that residents have less than two weeks to flee their homes.

Since 2014, Russians have flocked to occupied Crimea, replacing Ukrainians who left. The same thing is happening in Mariupol. It’s yet another Russian war crime quietly unfolding as international law prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into its occupied territory.

Ukraine had already hit over 30 Russian oil-processing refineries, President Volodymyr Zelensky y said on June 24th. That was roughly three months ago, and Ukraine has been keeping up the pace since—with drones already reaching a 1,500-kilometer range, according to him. 

Ukraine has been pounding Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the full-scale invasion started, in a bid to repel the threats of missile attacks from ships deployed around its southern coast. Russia’s Black Sea has been forced to relocate most of its ships, but can it work its way back to Crimea?