There are reports that Russia is transporting a large number of prefab concrete bunkers to a narrow strip of land called the Kinburn Peninsula that is southwest of Kherson.
As you can see from this map below from back in June, it is hard to tell from first glance what kind of strategic value the peninsula (in the black circle) would have aside from a proximity to active combat zones.
The peninsula sticks out between the Black Sea to the south and Dnipro Bay to the north. Ukrainian -held territory is just about five miles across the bay and the whole peninsula is well within HIMARS range.
At the very western end of the peninsula is a narrow strip of sandy land called the Kinburn Spit. It is a national park popular with campers and hikers and quite ecologically sensitive.
Back in the USSR times, this piece of land was home to more than 1,000 villagers and was famous for the vast strawberry fields. The helicopters would arrive here daily, taking the locals with their harvests of deliciously sweet strawberries to the farmers markets in Odessa.
Today, with most of the locals gone, and only around 150 residents remaining in the three villages of Kinburn, the days of the strawberry glory and the booming local farmer economy are long gone, too. But this may not be as sad as it sounds.
Remaining off the touristic radars, Kinburn is the place where the local nature thrives, and the residents contribute to protecting it. The asphalted road stops around Heroyske village. From there, if you look at the sputnik maps of the Kinburn Spit, it is cobwebs of roads in the sand that you wont be able to drive through unless you own a 4×4.
Kinburn National Park today is home to over 400 lakes, a population of unique pink pelicans that can only be spotted in a couple of other places around the world, and to one of the worlds biggest wild orchid fields. It is also miles of white sand beaches, crystal-clear blue water of the sea, and one of the best places for stargazing in Ukraine.
Nobody lives way out there on the Spit. The entire peninsula is only sparsely populated. So why is Russia intent on hauling in concrete bunkers?
The Russians have claimed that Ukraine has already tried a landing on the peninsula a month ago.
“There was an attempt to land exclusively on the Kinburn Spit, but everything was repulsed, the Nazis have no chance to enter Kherson Region,” he said.
According to him, the Ukrainian landing force most likely landed from the direction of Ochakov.
“There are points there, military bases that remain from Soviet times. But everything is controlled, the entire perimeter is watched. The Nazis have no chance of entering from the sea at all,” Stremousov said.
Speaking to the Russian state media outlet RIA, Stremousov said that about 120 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed by Allied troops while attempting to land a landing on the Kinburn Spit in Mykolayiv Region.
Did that actually happen? Who knows?
What did apparently happen several days ago is this:
The only reason to have an ammo dump way out on the end of a narrow spit of park land is if there is also artillery out there firing across the bay at Ukrainian targets in Ochakiv.
So I wondered why would Russia be so interested in Ochakiv other than just wreaking havoc indiscriminately like they usually do?
Well, this might be a reason:
So … if Ukraine did attempt a landing, what would be the reason? To silence artillery for sure. To protect the park, probably. But a landing would most likely look more like a special forces operation than Normandy. Ukraine doesn’t (as far as I know) have the capacity for a major beach-storming operation.
There are roads (some are just sand) that lead east toward Crimea and theoretically would put Ukraine south of Kherson. A landing that is later expanded could have this in mind, but they would be very exposed. The ancient forests that were there in Roman times were long ago cut down.
But Russia must be thinking Ukraine is planning some kind of landing on the peninsula somewhere in an attempt to either take out artillery or maybe outflank Russian forces in Kherson.
And if Kinburn becomes a raging battlefield? The damage to the wildlife and the ecology would be devastating, if the peninsula hasn’t already been trashed by the Russian occupation.
And Kinburn isn’t the only protected area or park in Ukraine that has been either destroyed, burned or damaged by the Russian invasion.
"20% of protected areas are now affected by this war. The threatened zone includes 9 million hectares of territories that are part of the Emerald Network [network of Areas of Special Conservation Interest set up by the Council of Europe] and 17 Ramsar sites [an international Convention on Wetlands] with an area of more than 600 thousand hectares", the Minister reported.
The Russians have also occupied 8 Ukrainian nature reserves and 12 national nature parks.
"The Russian Federation has demonstrated what life is like under Russian occupation. Almost 80% of the territory of the Holy Mountains National Nature Park was destroyed. In May, the Kinburn Spit burned for a whole week due to the fighting. Relict forests have been destroyed by fire."
If all that isn’t a war crime, it ought to be.