Armies rarely measure their success by the roads they’ve paved or the rail lines they’ve laid down — but that may be the metric Russia is using in occupied portions of Ukraine, where major infrastructure projects are underway or are being planned.
Over the last few months, Moscow-based media have reported on the construction of a new railway line between Rostov-on-Don in Russia, near the Sea of Azov and the border with Ukraine, and Yakymivka, about 10 kilometres north of the Crimean peninsula.
Experts in both Europe and North America describe it, and other potential public works projects, as part of a far-reaching attempt by the Kremlin to