Strange Invasion: On the Ground as Russia Takes Crimea From Ukraine

The Ukrainian naval base in Sevastopol sits on an inlet at the western end of the bay, walled off by an old metal fence. One day earlier this week, a cold, wet wind was blowing off the Black Sea, rocking the weathered ships of the Ukrainian navy. It’s a ragtag assortment of vessels: a handful of aging cruisers and gunships, along with the Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s only submarine, a diesel-powered ship commissioned in Leningrad in 1970 whose batteries, used to drive the propellers when it’s underwater, gave out in the mid-1990s. Beyond the row of Ukrainian ships, another mile or so out to sea, a ring of warships from the Russian Black Sea Fleet stood guard, reminding the sailors, as if they weren’t already aware, who was in charge.

I walked toward the edge of the docks with Alexander Goncharov, 40, a captain in the Ukrainian navy and the deputy commander of the base. He wore a heavy black raincoat over his fatigues and talked with the crisp speech of a lifelong military man. As we neared the water’s edge, Goncharov told me of the day not long before when a high-ranking Russian officer from the Black Sea Fleet came ashore and suggested he and his men come over to the Russian side, along with their ships. He refused, not so much out of any animosity toward Russia but from a soldier’s sense of duty. “I gave an oath to defend a state and its people,” he explained.