16/09/2026
⚡ Main News of the Week
🔸 On the night of September 9, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a massive strike against the occupiers’ military facilities on the Crimean Peninsula. Explosions were reported in Yalta, Kerch, Gaspra, and the Saki District, and among the targets hit were the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s “Magnet” radio transmission center in Inkerman and a building belonging to the russian security service.
🔸 In the temporarily occupied Crimea, the one-and-a-half-year-old daughter of Oleksandra Strilets from Sevastopol, whom the occupiers had convicted of so-called “treason,” died.
🔸 On September 7, 54-year-old Sevastopol resident Igor Schmidt was released from a russian prison after serving his full six-year sentence for his religious beliefs. He had been convicted for participating in worship services of the “Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
🔸 In the temporarily occupied Crimea, security forces filed an administrative report against Imam Sadik Urinbayev for alleged “illegal missionary activity.” Pressure on the religious leader has intensified due to his public campaign for the release of his daughter, Nasiba Saidova, who has been held in a pretrial detention center for 11 months on charges of participating in “Hizb ut-Tahrir.”
🔸 In the temporarily occupied Crimea, the occupiers continue to militarize children. They conducted tactical medicine training in preparation for the all-Russian military-patriotic game “Family Dawn.” Also in Simferopol, the occupiers organized the first qualifying round of a combat drone piloting competition among schoolchildren and college students.
📌 Crimes Committed by the Russian Federation
🔸 As of September 16, 2026, 316 people in occupied Crimea are subjected to politically motivated criminal prosecution, including 169 Crimean Tatars and 1 Karaite.
🔸 The so-called “court” sentenced a Crimean man to 21 years in a maximum-security prison on charges of treason and attempting to assassinate an occupation official. According to the occupation authorities’ investigation, the man voluntarily approached the SBU in 2022 to carry out missions, but Russian security forces detained him before he could obtain weapons and explosives.
🔸 In Kerch, security forces detained a local resident for comments on social media supporting Ukrainian strikes on russian military facilities and for posting a video showing air defense operations. The man was charged with allegedly publicly justifying terrorism, for which he faces up to 7 years in prison.
🔸 The Crimean occupation prosecutor’s office referred a case to the so-called “Supreme Court” involving a brother and sister accused of “treason” for allegedly collaborating with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the occupation authorities’ investigation, the siblings attempted to retrieve a high-explosive device from a hiding place but were detained by russian security forces.
🔸 russian security forces detained three local residents in occupied Crimea on charges of treason. The men are suspected of passing on information about air defense systems, oil depots, and ballistic missile launches after they were allegedly recruited via a dating website by a woman posing as a Ukrainian intelligence officer.
📌 The use of occupied Crimea as a springboard for attacks on Ukraine and the militarization of the peninsula
Since russia launched a full-scale invasion and spread its armed aggression throughout Ukraine, occupied Crimea has been used by russia as a military base for spreading aggression in various forms. From the peninsula, the occupiers continue to launch attacks on the territory of Ukraine, including on civilian infrastructure.
🔸 The Ukrainian Air Force reported that during the past week, the occupiers carried out another series of massive combined attacks on Ukrainian territory. In particular, they launched over 1933 strike UAVs of the Shahed, Gerbera, and Italmas types, as well as Parody decoy drones, from various directions, including from the territory of occupied Crimea and the Black Sea. The enemy also launched Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, 8 Kalibr sea-launched cruise missiles, and 6 X-59/69 air-launched guided missiles from the airspace over the Black Sea.
📌 The resistance movement of Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea
🔸 Activists from the “Yellow Ribbon” movement note that the occupiers are attempting to recruit women into the russian federation’s military forces. At the V. I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University and Sevastopol State University, closed-door meetings were held exclusively for female students. The students were not allowed to leave the lecture halls until the recruitment session was over.
The full-scale invasion was marked by a sharp increase in acts of solidarity and resistance by residents of occupied Crimea against the Russian occupiers. Residents of the occupied territories are uniting in resistance movements such as Yellow Ribbon, Zla Mavka, and ATESH, or acting individually.
To suppress the resistance movement of local residents in the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea after February 24, 2022, the occupation administration actively began to persecute and bring Ukrainian citizens to administrative liability under the article on the so-called discreditation of the Russian army.
📌 De-occupation of Crimea is an integral part of ending the war and restoring peace. Ukrainians are doing everything possible to stop the aggressor and protect the entire world from Russia’s criminal actions. Since this is not a local or regional problem, Russia’s aggression poses a threat to the entire world and the international order.
