Tourists flocking to the Black Sea beaches of the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula this summer are facing a frightening new arrival: bomb shelters and sandbags.
For more than two years, the beaches of the peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, have been just a stone’s throw away from the fiercest battles of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Last month, fragments from Ukrainian missiles killed four people, including two children, on a beach in the city of Sevastopol, while injuring 151 others. Footage shown on Russian state television showed some of the victims taking to the sun.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the more than two-year-old war began, and a smaller number of civilians have died inside Russia or in parts of Ukraine, such as Crimea, which Russia claims it has annexed.
Bathers on the beach of Uchuyevka, on the outskirts of Sevastopol, now share a pebbled shoreline and a concrete bomb shelter reinforced with sandbags – an unwelcome reminder of the ways in which the war, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” has encroached on ordinary people’s lives.
“In my opinion (the bomb shelters) are necessary,” said Irina, a tourist from Belarus, a close Russian ally.
“We have come here to visit our friends and we have been told that there is a lot of fear here, but there are shelters here and all the safety measures are being taken, I think that is very important.”
Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, said last Friday that additional defence measures were necessary, and accused Ukrainian authorities of being unruly.
Ukraine has carried out several air and naval attacks on Russian military bases in Crimea. But every year a large number of Russian tourists continue to visit there for their annual holidays.
A Russian tourist, Alexander Zhukovsky, said: “Probably, resting on the beach is more peaceful, when you are sure that at any moment you can be in safety. So yes, they are needed.”
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