From February through April 2021, Russia amassed troops and military equipment into training areas in Crimea and Voronezh. Shoigu announced that all Russian troops would be returned to their permanent bases by May 1. However, while most units headed to their respective gathering points, some units were spotted moving to undetermined locations, closer to mainland Ukraine. This was reported by the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory of the Atlantic Council (DFRLab).
According to DFRLab, one unit was spotted moving to the peninsula from as far as the Russian far east, a trip that should take about a week by rail. Satellite imagery also revealed that military helicopters appeared at the air base just 85km south of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast.
With this, Mi-8 transport helicopters and Mi-26 cargo helicopters were noticed at the abandoned Donuzlav Lake airbase, located 85 km south of Kherson region. Nine more Mi-28 attack helicopters and four Mi-8 transport helicopters appeared at Kirovsky Air Base near Feodosia.
"This type of traffic is not common at Kirovske, which normally hosts a small number of light fixed wing transport aircraft," DFRLab reports.
T-72B3 main battle tanks, BMD and BTR-D airborne armoured vehicles, Nona self-propelled 120mm mortars, D-30122-mm howitzers, fuel trucks and recovery vehicles were also transferred to the Angarsky training ground on the outskirts of Simferopol. They were transported to the Crimea by rail along with the units of the 76th Air Assault Division.
“Well over 100 videos of rail traffic carrying military equipment revealed what one would expect from units in the 76th Air Assault Division," the reports stated.
In one outlier, the DFRLab spotted a Kasta-2E2 radar from Domna in the far east moving to Ayvazovskaya Station in Feodosia, the terminus point for many units moving to Opuk. The majority of the equipment proved to be a wide variety of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, and support vehicles, mainly from the 58th Combined Arms Army.
“This could possibly mean an intention to keep a substantial amount of units at Opuk for an extended amount of time, or the radar could be joining an air defense unit adjacent to Feodosia. Both are plausible options,” the report concluded.