Russia's Crimea Defense Line Washed Away in Brutal Storm: Ukrainian Report

Videos and photos have emerged online showing the impact of a major storm that passed over the Crimean peninsula on Sunday, with Ukrainian officials reporting that Russian coastal defense lines had been destroyed in the process.

Situated in southern Ukraine in the Black Sea, Russia took control of Crimea in 2014 via military occupation and a highly contested referendum vote, a move that has gone widely condemned on the world stage. Amid the ongoing war in Ukraine that began in February 2022, Russia has maintained that Ukraine's recognition of Crimea as Russian territory is a primary condition for ending the conflict. Ukraine, conversely, has refused this demand, and included the peninsula in the list of occupied regions that it aims to liberate from Russian control.

On Sunday, Crimea was hit by a major storm, dubbed "Bettina" by Greek meteorologists, which was forecasted to result in waves as high as 26 to 33 feet, according to news outlet Nexta, and threaten many areas with flooding.

"Crimea was hit by a severe storm," Nexta wrote in a post to X, the platform previously known as Twitter, on Sunday afternoon, alongside videos showing the intensity of the waves and flooding generated around the region.

"Hurricane winds of up to 40 meters [131 feet] per second are ripping out trees and tearing off roofs. Many districts of Yevpatoria are flooded, and public transport has been halted in Sevastopol. The storm has reached Russia: the strongest winds are raging in Anapa and Krasnodar," it added.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs, shared various updates about the storm from local media sources, claiming that Russian defenses dug into the peninsula's beaches had been washed away.

"A storm washed away trenches in occupied Crimea that [the] Russian army dug out on the beaches," Gerashchenko wrote on X. "According to information from Crimean media, in Yevpatoria the water washed away the defense line on the coast, engineering buildings, and firing positions."

Newsweek reached out to Russian officials and defense experts via email for comment.

In another post, author and defense analyst H I Sutton shared a still image from one of the clips posted by Gerashchenko in which a Russian coastal defense line is seen being battered by waves, alongside an image of one of the lines being constructed for comparison.

"How it started. How it's going," Sutton wrote. "[Russian] beach defenses in Crimea being hit hard by the storm, possibly much washed away. (Photos not exact same location, but good indication what to expect.)"