Viktoria Veselova is a correspondent for the Crimea Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
Russian-held Crimea has been a staging ground for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine from the beginning. In recent months, occupation authorities have ramped up efforts in recent months to direct all the peninsula's resources to the Russian military.
Crimea's Russian-installed leaders have failed to live up to promises to free up public access to beaches.
Tightening its grip over the illegally annexed Ukrainian region of Crimea, Moscow is pushing ahead with the construction of a $2 billion highway across the peninsula. But hundreds of residents say their property rights are being trampled in the rush to get the project under way.
Two years ago, pro-Russian figures in Crimea and Russian government officials were promising residents of Ukraine's Black Sea region a rose garden after its annexation into the Russian Federation. Now, locals are still waiting to see most of those ambitious pledges fulfilled.
It is becoming increasingly likely that Ukraine's submission to this year's Eurovision song contest will be 1944, a song by singer Jamala that evokes the horrific deportation of the Crimean Tatar people by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
