A new technology of Ukrainian mid-range drones is severely disrupting the Russian navy’s supply lines to the southern entrance lines, hanging bridges, trains and gasoline vehicles – and giving Kyiv an opportunity to derail Moscow’s plans for a summer season offensive.
Video and pictures of about 150 strikes towards Russian gasoline tankers, vehicles and different autos have been geolocated and analyzed by French open-source analyst Clément Molin and the volunteer-run OSINT group Geoconfirmed, in addition to NCS’s OSINT crew.
It’s possible that many extra strikes have gone unrecorded.
Most have occurred because the starting of May, along with a surge in strikes on different targets reminiscent of port services and ships.
With a variety of fifty to 300 kilometers, the drones, all made in Ukraine, are designed to throttle the Russian military’s logistics – including a new dimension of strikes to Ukraine’s strategy because the struggle grinds by means of its fifth 12 months.
Among the newly designed drones are the FP-2 and the Behemoth, which has a cruising velocity of 180 kmh (110 mph) and might carry a 70 kilogram warhead.
“The Ukrainians have obtained the means to start a large-scale drone campaign to cut Crimea from its main supply roads and to complicate Russia’s logistical situation throughout the frontline,” Molin advised NCS.
In a press release to NCS, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, the navy department which runs its drone operations, mentioned that over the previous 12 months the variety of mid-range strike missions had risen 28-fold.
The purpose, it mentioned, is to suppress Russia’s offensive potential; create insurmountable logistical and supply issues for enemy forces; and wipe out Russian air defenses in occupied areas to open “corridors” for longer-range Ukrainian drones.
The drone strikes have made a number of routes between Russia and occupied Ukraine too harmful to make use of. The knock-on impact is a scarcity of gasoline and munitions for Russian frontline troops in southern Ukraine, additional disrupting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wartime targets.
A freeway between Crimea and the town of Melitopol, occupied by Russian forces because the early days of the struggle, is suffering from burned-out vehicles and tankers, based on geolocated video. There are additionally persistent gasoline shortages in Crimea.
Ukrainian drones have taken aerial management of three highways working alongside the coast to Crimea, based on analyst Mick Ryan, writer of the weblog Futura Doctrina and previously a senior officer within the Australian military.
“Petrol tankers and lorries are regularly set alight,” acknowledged one Russian navy blogger. “One by one, the links connecting the peninsula to the mainland are being severed.”
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov calls it a “logistical lockdown” to “systematically destroy Russian capabilities” far behind the entrance lines and “deprive them of the ability to conduct active assault operations.”
“The enemy will no longer feel safe, even at a considerable distance from the line of contact,” Fedorov mentioned final month.
Molin’s analysis suggests the strategy is working.
Ukraine has redefined the depth of the “kill zone,” he mentioned, after mapping lots of of Ukrainian strikes extending as much as 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the entrance lines.
“Roving munitions that fly over key routes and target Russian logistics, particularly military equipment and fuel trucks,” have additionally been extremely efficient, Molin mentioned. Twenty trains have been focused since January 2026, lots of them gasoline trains, unfold throughout the complete entrance, he added.
Other researchers see an analogous sample.
“Geolocated footage in May similarly shows Ukrainian forces striking at least 35 Russian trucks and other vehicles near highways” in Crimea and elsewhere in southern Ukraine, based on the Institute for the Study of War.
One instance is an important highway route linking Crimea with occupied Ukraine – which makes use of a bridge close to a village known as Chonhar. A Ukrainian drone unit has repeatedly struck the bridge and revealed pictures of enormous holes in its highway floor.
The Russian-backed administration within the occupied Kherson area has acknowledged harm to the Chonhar and different bridges – with site visitors repeatedly suspended and inefficient pontoon bridges set as much as substitute them.
Russian air defenses have appeared incapable of coping with the menace.
Freight site visitors utilizing the Chonhar bridge declined 71% in simply two weeks this month, based on Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s drone forces.
The focusing on led the Russians to make use of an alternate route, based on the Ukrainian navy, with numerous vehicles carrying navy provides despatched additional west. That route – by means of the town of Armiansk – was additionally hit.
“At that point, around 50 vehicles had gathered there,” mentioned Dmytro Filatov, commander of Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment.
The persistent strikes imply that one other bridge, linking Russian territory with Crimea throughout the Kerch Strait, is now an much more important artery.
Ukraine’s assaults “have increased the importance of the Kerch bridge for sustaining logistics to Crimea. I suspect Ukraine will try to target the bridge with Ukrainian-made drones or missiles,” wrote analyst Rob Lee.
The Kerch highway and rail crossing, opened by Putin in 2018, has been the target of previous Ukrainian attacks.
Some highways working from Russia into occupied Ukraine at the moment are off-limits to navy site visitors due to the menace from these mid-range drones.
Russian-backed authorities in occupied Luhansk introduced a halt to site visitors on two highways from Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don in Russia, important routes for resupplying the navy and occupied territories.
“Attacks on the region’s transport infrastructure have become more frequent recently,” it said.
Ukraine has additionally begun focusing on the port of Mariupol – a strategic and industrial hub on the Sea of Azov in occupied territory.
The port has “been completely cut off from power, and the logistics of Russian troops have been significantly hampered,” claimed the Ukrainian National Guard, which revealed video of a number of drones striking the port area earlier this month.
Russian navy bloggers are sad at what they see because the Russian Defense Ministry’s sluggish response.
Ukraine’s marketing campaign “is knocking out oil refineries in the south, creating fuel and logistics problems, and now the enemy is grounding civilian aviation with ‘caravans of drones,’” wrote one of the crucial well-liked bloggers, Two Majors.
The disabling of Starlink satellite tv for pc connections amongst Russian forces has additionally helped the Ukrainian marketing campaign.
But analysts, in addition to some in Ukraine’s navy, acknowledge the benefit could not final lengthy.
“Ukraine likely has a unique and time-constrained opportunity to exploit its current initiative while Russian forces remain vulnerable,” based on the Institute for the Study of War.
Even so, in Ryan’s view, Ukraine’s three tiers of drones – on the battlefield, towards supply lines and deep inside Russia – “increase pressure on Russian forces, degrade their offensive capabilities, and shape the battlespace for future Ukrainian offensive operations.”
Russian forces in southern Ukraine have already misplaced floor this 12 months, partly due to the higher vulnerability of their supply lines in comparison with these additional north.
“The capability to control everything moving through the southern part of the occupied territory, particularly from Crimea” is inside attain, based on impartial Ukrainian analytical group Deep State. placing Russian forces within the south on a “starvation ration.”