I suppose I should clarify that the Russian fleeing Crimea are not Russian soldiers but civilians.
Videos posted to social media show Russian vacationers fleeing Crimea following blasts at a military air base in the region that Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Black smoke from the Saki air base located in the west of the peninsula was visible from the nearby packed beaches after the attack on Tuesday which the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said had left one person dead and 14 injured.
The explosion sparked an exodus from the area which has been a popular holiday resort for years with videos showing people driving over the Kerch Bridge that links Crimea with the Russian territory of Krasnodar.
In one video, a woman expressed gratitude that her car was at least moving in the traffic jam, although she tearfully lamented how she had to leave Crimea.
“Special operation. Everything goes according to plan. Russians are fleeing Crimea, there are huge traffic jams on the roads,” Twitter user Lieutenant Kizhe captioned the clip, which by Thursday morning had been viewed more than half a million times.
The news outlet Live Kuban described how Krasnodar residents faced inspections from law enforcement and cars were snarled up in an “incredible” traffic jam. One driver said he had been stuck for almost half an hour just before the bridge.
“The traffic jams toward the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea with Russia are now dozens of kilometers long.”
24 hours later, still traffic jam to leave Crimea pic.twitter.com/NkLnQ630dK
— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) August 10, 2022
100 km traffic jam – people want to leave Crimea.
Do you think Russians will finally begin to understand that it's really a war? pic.twitter.com/KmwLqkxWGI
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 10, 2022
For all the talk of how Crimea is “inseparable” from Russia, it seems like an awful lot of actual Russians are separating from it as quickly as they possibly can. And all this after one missile strike. That would suggest that the locales know something that all the online trolls confidently and bombastically predicting inevitable Russian victory don’t. It’s also a far cry from the tenacious defense the Soviets put up in places like Leningrad and Stalingrad against actual (not pretend) Nazis, where every foot of advance was paid for in blood.
There are also reports of Russian military families living near occupied Kherson leaving.
An accurate picture of who’s winning the Russo-Ukranian War is hard to come by, but right now it sure seems like the Russians are spooked.