At the northern end of the Black Sea, Crimea sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, having been at various times in its long history either coveted, conquered or controlled by various powers.
The Ukrainian air force says one of Russia's most modern ships was at the shipyard but doesn't say if that ship was hit. Russia acknowledges a vessel was hit, but doesn't say which kind.
Traffic on a key bridge connecting Crimea to Russia's mainland was disrupted Monday after one of its sections was blown up in what Russian officials said was a Ukrainian attack that killed two.
Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to the Black Sea peninsula to mark the ninth anniversary of its annexation from Ukraine. Russia's move in 2014 was denounced as illegal by most of the world.
Theories abound about who is responsible for the attack and how they did it. On Wednesday, Russia arrested eight men alleged to have set off a truck bomb. Ukraine says Russia planned the attack.
Security agents arrested five Russians, two Ukrainians and an Armenian as suspects in the explosion, which disabled a critical link between Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula it annexed in 2014.
Ukrainians celebrated the Saturday attack on a key bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to mainland Russia by flooding social media with memes, which have become a staple of the conflict.
Several days after Ukraine said nine planes were destroyed at a Russian air base in Crimea, nobody has publicly claimed responsibility for it — but speculation abounds.
Russia had a more powerful army. It didn't think the West would intervene. The invasion was poorly planned. We're not talking about Russia's current war, but about Russia's Crimean War in the 1850s.
