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What did Russia's Crimea rail link mean in 2019?
Summary
A retrospective on 25 December 2019 and the reports of the preceding days, from the Kerch Strait to northwestern Syria.
What was the picture on 25 December 2019, as the year drew to a close? Two reports from the preceding days stood out for a Ukraine-focused audience.
On 23 December 2019, a railway bridge over the Kerch Strait was inaugurated, connecting Russia and Crimea. It was described as the longest in Europe. Ukrainian-language reports of the same date framed it differently: the construction of the bridge was complete and a railway had entered service linking Russia with Crimea, which Russia occupies.
The two descriptions show how one piece of infrastructure could be read in different ways. For Russia, it was a rail connection to the peninsula. For Ukraine, as reported at the time, it joined Russia to occupied territory.
Idlib, 24 December
On 24 December 2019, a war monitor reported that eight people, five of them children, were killed when a missile struck a school in Jobas, in Idlib District, northwestern Syria. The school was being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. Opposition activists blamed Russia.
The strike came during the northwestern Syria offensive, which ran from December 2019 to March 2020.
Taken together, the reports from 23 and 24 December 2019 showed Russia's reach on two fronts: a new rail link to an occupied peninsula and an alleged role in a deadly attack on civilians in Syria.
