# OPINION: Crimea goes dark — substations on fire and the fortress island that is cracking

> I look at these satellite images and I think about what Putin sold when he annexed Crimea in 2014: an eternal victory, a strategic jewel, an impregnable fortress. In 2026, that fortress is plunged int

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Note
- Published: 2026-07-02
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-la-crimee-s-eteint-les-sous-stations-en-feu-et-l-ile-forteresse-qui-vacil

## Introduction: A peninsula burning at a slow burn

### Two substations in flames on the morning of July 2

On the early morning of **July 2, 2026**, satellite imagery obtained by the analysis group **Krymsky Veter** showed two simultaneous fires in western **occupied Crimea**: the **Donuzlav 220 kV** and **Mityaevo 110/35/10 kV** substations, both located in the **Saky district**. A probable overnight strike is the cause, according to the **Euromaidanpress** report published that same morning. **Donuzlav**, one of the main high-voltage nodes in the western part of the peninsula, with a rated capacity of **150 MVA**, connects tens of thousands of residents to the electrical grid. **Mityaevo** supplies local villages and towns, and is connected to a **32 MW solar plant** in operation since **2012**.

These two strikes are not isolated. They are part of a sustained **Ukrainian** campaign to degrade Russian military and logistical capabilities in **Crimea**. What we are witnessing on **July 2, 2026** is the result of a deliberate strategy: to turn **Putin**'s fortress island into a burden for **Russia** rather than an asset. **Kyiv** is executing this strategy with a precision and regularity that can now be measured in power cuts and states of emergency declared by the occupiers themselves.

## A power grid designed for dependency

### The inherited structural fragility

**Crimea**'s electrical grid was not designed to operate autonomously. Before **2014**, the peninsula was powered largely from the Ukrainian mainland. After the Russian annexation, **Russia** invested in replacement infrastructure — including an underwater connection cable — but the fundamental structure remains fragile. Power plants run on gas piped from mainland **Russia**, and their turbines are mostly **Siemens turbines** that Western sanctions have placed out of reach for proper maintenance since **2022**.

This technical reality means that **each strike compounds the damage from previous ones**. According to data reported by **Euromaidanpress**, when a substation suffers repeated damage, the backup capacity from other nodes gradually diminishes. The Crimean grid is today a structure whose redundancies are being exhausted strike by strike — and Western sanctions prevent importing the parts needed for proper repairs. **Russia** has built a fortress whose foundations it can no longer maintain.

### Accumulated blackouts since June 2026

The timeline of documented failures is telling. On **June 25, 2026**, the occupation utility **Krymenergo** announced a power cutoff across several parts of the peninsula. That same day, **Yalta** and parts of **Sevastopol** went dark after strikes on two thermal power plants. On **June 26**, the occupation authorities declared a **peninsula-wide state of emergency**. On **June 29**, new strikes cut power to occupied territories. On **July 1**, the town of **Armyansk** had been without electricity and water for more than two days.

Each day brings a new failure bulletin. The districts of **Yany Kapu** and **Feodosiya** were also experiencing prolonged outages, according to local sources. The progression is systematic: Ukrainian strikes methodically target critical grid nodes, beginning with the largest high-voltage hubs to cascade effects through the lower-voltage distribution network.

## The Ukrainian strategy: isolate to weaken

### A long-duration naval and aerial campaign

What we are seeing in **Crimea** since the summer of **2026** is not a series of opportunistic strikes — it is the execution of a documented strategy. The Ukrainian navy has described its operations as a **"multi-year operation aimed at cutting the logistics of the peninsula."** Targets are selected methodically: fuel depots, electrical substations, rail crossings, **S-300/S-400** air defense positions. Each target category contributes to degrading a specific layer of Russian capabilities.

This approach has documented strategic precedents in other theaters of war: rather than attacking a defended position head-on, you cut its supply lines, degrade its command and communication capabilities, and force the adversary to devote increasing resources to basic maintenance rather than offensive operations. Ukraine's strategy in **Crimea** follows this logic with remarkable consistency over several months.

### The timeline of strikes from June 28 to July 2

The pace of documented strikes between **June 28** and **July 2, 2026** illustrates the campaign's intensity: on **June 28**, the **Sakska** thermal plant was targeted; in the night of **June 29**, an **S-300/S-400** position near **Kerch** and a **220/35 kV** substation in the **Kurmansky district** were struck; and in the night of **July 1–2**, the **Donuzlav** and **Mityaevo** substations caught fire. Six consecutive days of documented strikes on critical infrastructure.

The pattern reveals a clear strategic logic: the strikes target not only the power supply but also the air defenses protecting the peninsula. Each degraded **S-300/S-400** position reduces **Russia**'s ability to protect its Crimean assets from subsequent strikes. It is a self-amplifying strategy documented by the **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** in its analyses of the **July 2026** campaign.

## The impact on occupation forces

### The dual fuel-and-electricity crisis

The situation in **Crimea** is not limited to power cuts. In **June 2026**, Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure triggered a fuel crisis that spread to **25 Russian oblasts** and the **six occupied Ukrainian territories**, with **Crimea** among the hardest hit. Occupation authorities suspended civilian fuel sales — a decision that directly affects local population mobility and complicates military logistics across the peninsula.

This dual crisis creates degraded operational conditions for Russian forces. Radar, communications, and command systems require reliable and continuous power. Military vehicles require available fuel. When both fail simultaneously, operational capability degrades in cascade. This is precisely what Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation **Mykhailo Fedorov** described when he stated that **Russia** was being forced to solve **"one crisis after another."**

### The state of emergency as an admission of weakness

The declaration of a **peninsula-wide state of emergency** on **June 26, 2026** by the occupation authorities is a significant strategic indicator. This level of administrative response implies emergency powers — requisitions, movement restrictions, control over essential resources. In plain terms: the authorities are admitting they can no longer manage the situation within normal procedures.

The closure of children's camps reported by Ukrainian sources adds a practical dimension to this picture: even the management of the most vulnerable populations is falling outside normal operations. This is not the hallmark of an administration in control of its territory — it is that of an occupation apparatus under growing pressure, reactive rather than proactive, managing successive emergencies rather than any coherent strategy.

## The Russian fleet and the Black Sea

### A weakened naval base

The **Russian Black Sea Fleet**, based in **Sevastopol**, has suffered considerable losses since **2022**. Cruisers, submarines, and landing ships have been sunk by Ukrainian naval drones and long-range missiles. The progressive degradation of electrical and defense infrastructure in **Crimea** further undermines the operational base of this fleet, which constitutes **Russia**'s maritime power projection instrument in the **Black Sea** and the eastern **Mediterranean**.

Every electrical substation destroyed in **Saky** or **Kurmansky** is one more element in the systemic degradation of Russian military capability on the peninsula. This degradation has effects that extend far beyond the peninsula: a **Russia** weakened in the **Black Sea** is a **Russia** less capable of threatening Ukrainian ports at **Odessa**, international maritime traffic, and freedom of navigation that the **West** treats as a fundamental given.

### Crimea in future negotiations

**Crimea** sits at the center of any discussion on a possible settlement of the conflict. **Russia** considers the **2014** annexation a permanent reality. **Ukraine** and international law treat it as an illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory. The infrastructure degradation campaign in Crimea shifts the balance of power ahead of any negotiations: if the peninsula is transformed from asset to burden — degraded defenses, ruined infrastructure, weakened logistics — its value as claimed territory changes in any diplomatic scenario.

Polish Foreign Minister **Radosław Sikorski** had stated on **June 27, 2026** a clear position: **"If Putin is ready for a ceasefire, he will find Zelensky's number."** Ukraine's ability to continue degrading Russian capabilities in **Crimea** strengthens its negotiating position by demonstrating it can impose real military costs on a territory **Moscow** considered definitively acquired.

## Western sanctions as a silent weapon

### Siemens turbines and unavailable parts

One factor consistently underestimated in the degradation of Crimean infrastructure is the role of **Western sanctions**. The equipment making up the peninsula's electrical grid — notably the **Siemens turbines** installed in Russian-built plants after **2014** — can no longer be properly maintained since international sanctions were imposed in **2022**. Replacement parts are under embargo. Qualified technicians can no longer legally intervene from the **West**. Each breakdown becomes a makeshift repair, and each makeshift repair creates a new vulnerability.

This reality turns every Ukrainian strike into a damage multiplier. When sanctionable equipment is damaged, **Russia** cannot replace it identically or repair it to original standards. It improvises with what it can find — lower-quality substitute components, temporary solutions that weaken the entire grid. The combination of strikes plus sanctions creates a cumulative degradation that neither alone would have produced.

### Russian dependency on the mainland grid

**Crimea** remains dependent on mainland **Russia** for its gas and, partially, its electricity. This dependency is itself a strategic vulnerability: if the links with mainland **Russia** are disrupted — whether the **Kerch Bridge**, pipelines, or power cables — the peninsula finds itself isolated in a way that goes well beyond the symbolic. Occupation authorities in **July 2026** are managing precisely this threat: a peninsula whose connections to its mainland weaken while its internal infrastructure simultaneously degrades.

This dual pressure — external from strikes, internal from the deterioration of unsourceable equipment — is perhaps the most difficult scenario for the occupiers to manage. A bombed building can be repaired. A sanctioned turbine under continuous military pressure cannot easily be replaced. **Crimea in 2026** illustrates concretely what "economic warfare" means when it is coordinated with military operations.

## What this reveals about the war in 2026

### Crimea as a barometer of the long war

The situation in **Crimea** on **July 2, 2026** is a precise barometer of the state of the war. It simultaneously reveals several realities: that **Ukraine** has developed deep-strike capabilities that defy Russian defenses; that Western sanctions have created a structural dependency in the Russian military economy that is difficult to compensate; and that Ukraine's cumulative infrastructure degradation strategy will produce results over time, even if each individual strike appears modest.

These observations do not mean the war is won. Ukrainian losses are real and documented. The front line remains difficult to shift. But **Crimea** says something important: **Putin** has failed to sanctuarize his territory. **Russia** is sustaining real material damage on a territory it believed definitively acquired. That is a significant paradigm shift in the conflict's dynamics.

### A strategic victory not to be underestimated

In the daily flow of tallies — killed, wounded, positions lost or gained — the two substations in **Saky** risk going unnoticed. That would be an analytical error. These fires represent the cumulative result of weeks of planning, technical preparation, and risks taken by drone crews and missile pilots. They also represent proof that Ukraine's Crimea strategy is working as planned.

Minister **Fedorov** was right: **Russia** is solving **"one crisis after another"** in **Crimea**. When you solve crises reactively, you are not building a strategy. When you impose the crises on your adversary, you keep the initiative. In **Crimea**, in early **July 2026**, the initiative belongs to **Kyiv**.

## Kyiv's message before the Ankara summit

### When strategy speaks louder than diplomacy

Five days before the **NATO summit in Ankara** on **July 7–8, 2026**, the two burning substations in **Crimea** constitute a strategic message as much as a military operation. **Ukraine** is demonstrating to its allies — and to **Moscow** — that it possesses autonomous deep-strike capabilities against occupied territories. This is not rhetoric. These are facts verifiable by satellite imagery.

Polish Foreign Minister **Radosław Sikorski** had stated it on **June 27** with remarkable candor: **"We Europeans are not neutral between the two parties. We are on the side of the victim of aggression."** The Ukrainian strikes in **Crimea** concretely embody this moral asymmetry: on one side, an illegal occupation maintained by force; on the other, a documented resistance achieving measurable military results.

### What allies should take to Ankara

For Western partners still questioning the effectiveness of support for **Ukraine**, **Crimea** provides an empirical answer. Every drone system delivered, every batch of precision munitions supplied, every intelligence-sharing arrangement translates into Ukrainian capacity to strike significant military targets. **Donuzlav** and **Mityaevo** prove it. This is not lobbying — it is a result verifiable from satellite images published within 24 hours of the strikes.

The question for **Ankara** is therefore concrete: will allies maintain and amplify this support, or will they yield to pressure aimed at normalizing the situation in occupied territories? The Ukrainian answer on the ground is there, verifiable: two substations on fire, and a strategy producing measurable effects on Russian military capability. **Kyiv** has done its part. It is **NATO**'s turn to do theirs.

## Conclusion: The island that was not unsinkable

### What these two substations say about the war

Two substations on fire on the morning of **July 2, 2026**. This is not a spectacular media event — no presidential declarations live on air, no civilian casualty figures. But these two fires summarize, better than any press release, a profound military reality: **Ukraine** is systematically degrading **Russia**'s ability to use **Crimea** as a military platform, night after night, infrastructure by infrastructure.

The peninsula that **Putin** annexed in **2014** as a geostrategic jewel is becoming a millstone. A state of emergency has been declared. The population lives under rolling blackouts. The grid is collapsing under cumulative strikes that sanctions prevent from being repaired. This is not the final victory. It is proof that the fortress island was not unsinkable — and that patience and precision can undo what brute force built.

### A lesson for those who believed in irreversibility

The **2014** annexation was presented by some commentators as a definitive fait accompli that the **West** should accept in order to **"turn the page."** The reality of **2026** refutes that judgment. Borders drawn by force can be contested by strategy. **Ukraine** did not accept this fait accompli. It has been contesting it night after night, substation by substation, drone by drone. And the results are measurable in watts lost, liters of fuel rationed, and nights without light on the peninsula of shame.

This opinion piece is not a victory anthem — the war continues, human tolls mount on both sides. But it documents something important: **Putin** cannot win this war without paying an ever-rising price. And that price is now being paid on a territory he believed definitively acquired. **Armyansk** without water or electricity for two days is the concrete answer to those who thought **Crimea** was settled.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Euromaidanpress — Two power substations catch fire in western occupied Crimea in probable overnight strike — July 2, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/07/02/two-power-substations-catch-fire-in-western-occupied-crimea-in-probable-overnight-strike/)

- [News Ukraine RBC — Blackout spreads across Crimea after Ukrainian strikes — July 1, 2026](https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/blackout-spreads-across-crimea-after-ukraine-1782988226.html)

- [Institute for the Study of War — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, July 1, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-1-2026/)

### Secondary sources

- [Charter97 — Situation in Crimea under Ukrainian strikes — July 1, 2026](https://charter97.org/en/news/2026/7/1/689746/)

- [Intent Press — Reports of strikes on energy facilities in occupied Crimea — July 2026](https://intent.press/en/news/society/2026/reports-of-strikes-on-energy-facilities-have-emerged-from-occupied-crimea/)

- [Kyiv Independent — Live coverage of the war in Ukraine — July 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/billet-la-crimee-s-eteint-les-sous-stations-en-feu-et-l-ile-forteresse-qui-vacil