RUSSIA invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea ten long years ago today - but it is still the most "decisive terrain" in the battle against Putin.
Kyiv has always had a bold battle plan to recapture the highly strategic peninsula and military analysts told The Sun that "if Crimea falls, Vladimir Putin could too".
A decade ago, unmarked Russian tanks moved into the Crimean peninsula and so began a grinding and painful war that would eventually be fought all across Ukraine.
Russian troops dubbed "little green men" appeared in uniforms without insignia or bearing any flags.
In under two months between February and March 2014, Putin's forces seized strategic sites, installed their own illegally appointed officials and annexed the peninsula.
Russia and Ukraine both mark February 20, 2014, as the day annexation began.
But two years on from Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 and Crimea - once considered by Vlad a relative safezone - has become dangerously vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
It is now under fire from a wave of Storm Shadow missile and drone strikes, special ops raids and sabotage attacks, while far greater battles are expected.
Despite the struggles faced by Ukraine across the front line - experts believe Crimea remains the key to victory.
And some of Kyiv's biggest military feats in recent months have been inside Crimea, such as the killing of high profile officers, blowing up key radar stations and sinking warships.
Such attacks have been serving Putin repeated humiliations and repeatedly proved Ukraine can creatively penetrate inside its defences.
Experts believe that taking Crimea could be a matter of a "death by a thousand cuts" for Putin as his stronghold is whittled down by the Ukrainians.
Former US General Ben Hodges told The Sun that since 2014, Ukraine's goal has always been to win back Crimea.
“If Crimea falls, so could Putin," he explained.
Hodges, who served as the commanding general of the US Army in Europe, has long hailed Crimea to be the “decisive terrain” of the war.
Ukraine, he said, has always understood this. “They know they'll never be safe or secure or able to rebuild Ukraine as long as Russia occupies Crimea."
And as the full-scale war drags into its third year this week, Gen. Hodges said: “Ukraine must do anything that will reduce Russian headquarters, artillery, logistics and make Crimea untenable”.
The Kremlin needs Crimea because it holds its Black Sea Fleet's main naval base and provides Moscow with access to the Mediterranean and onto the Atlantic.
That access has allowed Russia a stranglehold over the Ukrainian economy by blockading its ports, crippling its exports.
And that is why Kyiv points its most lethal and devastatingly expensive weapons at Crimea.
Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at international affairs think-tank Chatham House, told The Sun that Crimea is Putin's kryptonite.
His legitimacy is tied to the peninsula - its strategic position and symbolic importance - and his regime might not survive its loss, she explained.
"Crimea is the direct link to destabilising Russia inside because Putin has connected his own [idea of Russia's] 'undefeated strategy' with the annexation of Crimea.
"Ukrainians know that this is a sore point politically for him.
"There will be more battles that we will see around Crimea this year, mainly drawn on electronic warfare and strikes like that."
A head-on attack on Crimea has always been considered far too difficult to pull off.
Instead, Kyiv's plan appears to be: besiege the annexed peninsula - launching continuous assaults from land, sea and air - until it becomes untenable for Russian forces to hold it.
Ukraine is now penetrating Crimea almost consistently, expanding its sabotage operations and developing its own longer-range missiles to strike deep targets deep inside.
Putin’s prized £3billion Kerch bridge was heavily damaged, vessels have been blown out the water in Sevastopol harbour (a submarine included), the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters was destroyed (killing senior Russian commanders) and airfields and other military infrastructure has been under constant attack.
Earlier this month, Ukraine blew up a £55million Russian warship using kamikaze sea drones only a month after a key Russian landing strip, the Novocherkassk, erupted in a spectacular inferno that filled Crimea's skies.
Kyiv claims to have now sunk a third of Putin's once fearsome Black Sea Fleet.
What's left of it is has retreated and is now expected to relocate to a naval base to the Moscow-backed Georgian breakaway region, Abkhazia.
I don't have any doubt that within a few months Ukraine would be able to seriously jeopardise Russian supplies to Crimea
Ambassador John Herbst
John Herbst, former US ambassador to Ukraine, predicts that Crimea will not turn into a “huge battle” but "death for the Russians by a thousand cuts”.
Herbst, who is also senior director at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, said that if the West gave Ukraine the weapons to blitz Crimea then Moscow could lose control of it in "months".
"They know how to fight. We merely need to give them the means to win this fight," Herbst said.
“The way I see it and many others is that if we provide Ukraine the means - the F-16s, the tanks and longer-range missiles in quantity - then I don't have any doubt that within a few months Ukraine would be able to seriously jeopardise Russian supplies to Crimea.”
He expects Kyiv's strategy would be to isolate the peninsula by severing its main land bridge to Russia, cutting off the majority of supplies for both Russian military and civilian administrative needs.
With supply lines jeopardised and their forces being driven out, "it would greatly increase the cost of the war for [Putin] and it might well lead to Russia leaving Crimea."
That would put a lot of pressure on Russian forces in south mainland Ukraine and, according to Herbst, could force them to retreat.
However, Putin is expected to fight to the death over Crimea, throwing all he has to defend it.
It is already heavily mined and fortified with a vast network of trenches and anti-tank barriers known as "dragon teeth" wrapping around the peninsula.
Putin has also frequently threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend it - a tactic that Ukraine and Western military officials believe to be a bluff.
Yet, his threats - empty or not - have frightened some Ukrainian allies from providing it with the weapons it needs to strike Crimea as they fear such an escalation.
As Ukraine now furthers it shift into what its military calls "defensive operations" on land, Crimea "has to remain the decisive terrain," said Keir Giles, a senior fellow at Chatham House's Russia programme.
He told The Sun: "What we see Ukraine doing is steadily increasing the grip on Crimea in terms of holding it at risk.
"Because if Ukraine can make Crimea untenable for Russia, regardless of the position of Ukraine's 1000km front line, then that is going to be an immediate and major setback with major ramifications for the war."
