‘Filming the army of a country at war is suicide.’ Police say Block children are back with their father in Denmark

Ukraine has again attacked a sensitive target of Russian forces in Crimea. Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine’s air force, said on Saturday that a Russian command post at Saky Airport in Crimea, which had been annexed by Russia in violation of international law, had been destroyed.

“Aerodrom Saky: All targets have been shot down,” Oleshchuk said, according to Ukrainian media reports. The information cannot be independently confirmed. But the report follows several successful Ukrainian attacks on targets in Crimea in recent weeks. A group of Ukrainian partisans living among the occupiers in Crimea and conducting important reconnaissance for Ukraine are apparently significantly involved.

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‘Atesh’ means fire

It is a group that calls itself “Atesh”. In the Crimean Tatar language it means ‘fire’. The partisans have repeatedly been linked to attacks on Crimea in particular. For example, she is said to have taken part in the rocket attack on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol at the end of September (t-online reported).

For those involved, reconnaissance work for the Ukrainian army is a suicide mission. The Crimean Peninsula has been occupied by Russia since 2014. Since then, the Russians have militarily armed Crimea. The peninsula is a key launching point for Kremlin forces to conduct air raids on Ukraine. This makes it all the more important for Ukraine to conduct successful operations against Russian forces in Crimea. For this she relies on local information.

“A missile attack with Storm Shadow (British cruise missiles, editor’s note) or Himars (multiple missile launchers, editor’s note) is a very costly affair,” a spokesperson for “Atesh” told the British broadcaster BBC. “We can’t just throw ammunition around like the Russians. We need to verify the information we receive.” This is where the partisans come into play.

“Mistakes are simply inexcusable in such activities.”

Several members of the partisan group told the BBC about their dangerous work in Crimea. The stakes are very high, one of them said. “Nobody wants to go to jail.” Each mission must be meticulously planned, which sometimes takes several weeks. “Mistakes in such activities are simply inexcusable,” one of the officers told the BBC.

Because the Russian occupiers are constantly looking for spies. This is why many members of “Atesh” keep their work for the partisan group a secret, even from their own families. “Filming the army of a country at war is suicide,” one of the resistance members told the BBC.

Partisans want liberation of the occupied territories

According to the partisans, the group aims to end the Russian occupation of Crimea and the Ukrainian regions in the east and south of the country. On the peninsula they lived under ‘terrible conditions’, the station quoted a resistance fighter. “But I am absolutely sure that little by little we are bringing the liberation of Crimea closer.”

The activities of Ukrainian partisan groups reportedly go far beyond reconnaissance of enemy positions. Last November, a resistance group reportedly killed three Russian officers in an explosion in Melitopol, southern Ukraine (t-online reported). In addition, the Ukrainian partisans are said to have carried out further attacks on the Russian occupiers. You can read more about the work of the partisans here.

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