It is often associated with human habitation (Andreychev and Kuznetsov 2020), tending to be found in parks, gardens, and even buildings. It can be found in a wide variety of other habitat types, including woodland, forest edge, reed vegetation, river banks, and agroecosystems (Nistreanu 2011, Sheftel 2018). It is widespread in Crimea and present in majority of habitats (Tovpinets and Evstafiev 2010). In the desert zone it lives in oases and river valleys (Sokolov and Orlov 1980, Zaytsev et al. 2014) and also occurs on saline soils (Snitnikov 1936). It has been reported from steppes in Central Asia and Mongolia (Kuznetsov 1948, Sokolov and Orlov 1980). It feeds on insects and, to a lesser extent, plant material (Sheftel 2018). This species is most active at night, and forms nests under leaf litter, grass, log piles or similar (Sheftel 2018).

The Lesser White-toothed Shrew (Crocidura suaveolens) has a widespread distribution, occurring in eastern Europe through to Russia and south towards the Caucasus. Its range extends eastwards to northern China and Mongolia (Sheftel 2018). However, the borders of its range and its status in countries at the edge of its distributional limits are unclear. It has been recorded to at least 800 m asl in Ukraine (Kuruts 2004) and up to 3,600 m asl in the Pamir Mts. (Zaytsev et al. 2014).

All Soricidae are protected under Appendix III of the Bern Convention. It occurs in numerous protected areas within its range. It is included in the Red Books of several administrative regions of the Russian Federation: Kaluga, Mordovia, and Chuvashia (Zaytsev et al. 2014). Given the recent taxonomic split of the C. suaveolens species group into three species, biological, ecological and distribution data for each of the newly recognized species should be studied.