Russia using five airfields in Crimea, some almost empty – Ukraine’s Navy spokesperson

Russians actively use aviation over the Black Sea, maintaining constant presence there.

The spokesperson for Ukraine’s Navy, Dmytro Pletenchuk, said this on the national television, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Actually, now the aviation, which is mostly deployed on the western and southern coasts of temporarily occupied Crimea, is assigned a wide range of tasks, starting from patrolling the water area instead of ships, conducting reconnaissance, inflicting fire damage. That is, the full list of tasks. And now Russian presence in the air is constant, dense, and not only of combat aircraft, but also of various drones," said Pletenchuk.

According to him, the enemy constantly keeps reconnaissance drones in the air, in particular, Iranian Mohajer-6.

The spokesperson noted that Russians primarily use Black Sea Fleet aviation.

"In general, they currently use five airfields in Crimea. However, some of them are actually almost empty," he said, adding that this is due to the fact that the airfields are located in the zone affected by the Ukrainian military.

According to Pletenchuk, in fact, the entire territory of Crimea is within fire range of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.

"This is a problem for the enemy, but they are forced to use Crimean airfields anyway. First of all, this is due to some technical considerations. Compared to the tactics of using aviation in other countries which use refueling in the air much more widely, Russians do not do this, despite the fact that they have air tankers. But in order to increase the radius of action, flight time around Crimea, they are still forced to be based in Crimea," said the Navy spokesperson.

As reported by Ukrinform earlier, Russian Su-30SM jet was shot down over the Black Sea.