Ukraine’s campaign to isolate Crimea is accelerating. After years of Russian dominance, Kyiv is now targeting every major supply route connecting the peninsula to the mainland. From strikes on the Kerch Bridge to relentless drone attacks along the Mariupol Highway, Russia’s grip on Crimea is weakening fast. Fuel shortages, destroyed convoys, and collapsing air defenses are reshaping the battlefield. For the first time since 2014, the liberation of Crimea no longer feels impossible — it feels closer than ever.
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00:00Since Russia seized control of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine has vowed to someday take its territory
00:07back. For years, that seemed impossible. Russia's grip on the area was simply too strong,
00:13and when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,
00:18Kyiv was forced to focus its efforts elsewhere to avoid other regions falling under the Kremlin's
00:23control. Now things have changed. Ukraine has turned the tide of this war. It's gaining
00:29momentum at a rapid rate. And all of a sudden, the liberation of Crimea no longer seems like a
00:35pipe dream, but a very real possibility, as Ukrainian forces are slowly but surely cutting
00:41off the connections that link the region to Russia, weakening the Kremlin's stranglehold,
00:46and potentially paving the way for something far greater. This has been a long time coming.
00:52It was over a decade ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the forceful takeover of
00:58the Crimean Peninsula. He argued that it was what the people wanted, and that Crimea had always been,
01:03and should always remain, Russian. Many people within the region, and elsewhere across Ukraine,
01:10strongly disagreed. But Putin's operation was planned and executed surprisingly well,
01:15leaving Kyiv with little option but to begrudgingly accept the new state of play.
01:20When the full-scale invasion began years later in 2022, Russia leveraged its control of Crimea.
01:26It funneled troops, air defenses, bombers, and more into the region, using them to carry out
01:32relentless attacks on Ukraine's southern regions. The peninsula was effectively transformed into a
01:37military launch pad, and it proved crucial in the early days when the Kremlin's forces were making
01:43rapid gains in places like Kherson and Zaporizhia. Ukraine realized this and actively began targeting
01:50Crimea as and when it had the opportunity to do so. We saw attacks on the Black Sea fleet in
01:56the
01:56Crimean port city of Sevastopol, for example, as well as strikes on the Kerch Strait Bridge,
02:01which directly links the peninsula to the Russian mainland. But those attacks were often sporadic,
02:07and it was difficult for Ukraine to actually build or maintain any sort of sustained pressure on the
02:13area. Thus, even when it suffered damage or losses in the region, Russia often had time to recover,
02:18repair, and replenish its forces there, and it was able to make use of several key supply routes to do
02:24so. It used the bridge itself, of course, but also relied on railway ferries to transport important
02:30cargo and supplies across the strait. The Kremlin's forces also established land corridors and rail routes
02:36leading from Russian regions through the occupied territories and into Crimea. With these options at
02:40its disposal, the Russian army was, for years, able to maintain a sizable presence on the peninsula.
02:46Even when supplies started to run low or Ukrainian drone and missile strikes occurred, it never took
02:51too long to get more manpower, munitions, and other resources into the region. Today, the situation is
02:57completely different. Regarding the bridge, for example, Russia's commanders are now believed to be
03:02extremely reluctant to rely on it for transporting troops or military equipment. This is mostly due to the
03:07fact that Ukraine has orchestrated numerous successful strikes on the structure over the years,
03:12including a massive explosion in October 2022 that saw several parts of the road collapse,
03:17another set of explosions in July 2023, an attempted missile strike in August 2023,
03:23and an underwater explosive attack in June 2025. Even though there haven't been any documented
03:29explosions or fires since then, the bridge is in a near-constant state of red alert,
03:33as Ukrainian drones and missiles could come over the horizon and send entire chunks of the
03:38structure into the sea at any time. Indeed, as recently as May 16, traffic across the bridge
03:44had to be suspended for security reasons for a period of 11 hours before normal service resumed.
03:50The closure caused lengthy delays for a dozen trains, and this sort of thing is happening quite
03:54often nowadays. The bridge often has to temporarily suspend operations anytime Ukrainian drones or missiles
04:00are seen in and around the Crimean skies. Even without the bridge, Russia was still able to
04:05operate numerous railway ferries to move people and goods across the Kerch Strait. So Ukraine started
04:11taking them out one by one, and in early April of this year, the final ferry, codenamed Slavyanin,
04:17was disabled. Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, released images of the attack,
04:23showing flames and smoke pouring out of the vessel. The very same night, Kyiv's forces also struck the
04:29Russian port of Kavkaz, situated in the Krasnodar-Kryde region, sending a clear message to their enemy that
04:36the flow of military supplies across the Kerch Strait would no longer be permitted. Unable to use either
04:42the bridge or the waterway, Russia's forces had just one option left. The only way they could get
04:47supplies from the mainland to Crimea was through the occupied regions, along the M14 highway, sometimes
04:53known as the Mariupol highway, to be precise. This highway stretches across southern Ukraine, linking
04:59Odessa in the west to the edge of the Donetsk region and the Russian border in the east, passing
05:03through the big cities of Karsan and Mariupol along the way. Since Russia controls a large part of the
05:09Donetsk region, it was effectively able to seize control of this highway and use it for its own ends.
05:14It could send the likes of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and troop carriers along the M14,
05:19passing through occupied Mariupol and onwards, eventually turning off the highway and heading
05:24south across the regional border into Crimea. For years, it worked. The highway was regularly
05:30full of Russian vehicles, soldiers, and supplies on their way to the peninsula, and there was very
05:35little that Ukraine could do about it, as the road itself was quite far from the front lines and
05:39reasonably well defended. Ukraine's drones couldn't quite fly far enough to hit the highway consistently,
05:45and its forces had to prioritize other locations and more important targets. But in 2026, it's a very
05:51different story. Now Ukraine hasn't merely learned the art of drone warfare, it's mastered it. It has
05:57bigger, better, and more impactful unmanned aerial vehicles than ever before, with the capacity to
06:03travel further and hit harder than their more primitive predecessors. And Ukraine is using those drones to
06:09remarkable effect, turning the M14 into a veritable highway to hell for the Russians.
06:14This has all happened incredibly quickly. On May 11, Russia's military bloggers and propagandists
06:20suddenly started to sound the alarms, sharing reports that Ukrainian drones had at last been
06:26spotted along the highway and were now capable of traveling the 160 to 200 kilometers or 100 to 124 miles
06:33necessary to cross the front lines and reach this vital artery of the Kremlin supply network.
06:38In the days that followed, those same bloggers began frantically sharing videos and images of
06:43burnt-out vehicles and fires along the side of the highway with brutal results of Ukrainian UAV strikes
06:48in the area. One of those bloggers, Alexei Zhivov, called the attacks an extremely alarming signal
06:55before going on to say,
06:57The enemy has begun reaching the key logistics artery, using long-range drones enhanced with
07:02Starlink satellite technology to help them take out targets miles from the front.
07:06Another blogger, Vladimir Romanov, said the Mariupol-Budyansk section of the road was
07:11no longer a rear-area road, suggesting that the highway was becoming an increasingly dangerous place
07:17as he shared footage of a burning fuel tanker beside the road. Ukraine, meanwhile,
07:22also shared reports and footage of successful drone strikes in the area.
07:25To be more precise, the Azov brigade wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian drones were now capable
07:31of patrolling roads and striking targets at depths of up to 160 kilometers behind the lines of combat,
07:37issuing a stark warning to enemies in the area. The first core of the Azov naval base continues to
07:43create a sanitary zone for Russian logistics. The depth of strikes will increase, and Ukraine has
07:49kept its promise. In the days since those initial reports broke, the M14 has become one of the most
07:54dangerous locations in all of the occupied territories for Russian soldiers and military
07:59vehicles. Nowhere is safe, as Ukrainian drones are never too far away. Armed with enough explosives to
08:06take out the likes of tanks and infantry vehicles, these kamikaze UAVs have no trouble at all eliminating
08:13simple transport trucks and personnel carriers. With every passing day, the highway looks more like
08:18a frontline kill zone than a secure supply line, with one Russian blogger Maxim Kalashnikov even
08:24comparing it to the battlefields of Afghanistan. The land route to Crimea increasingly resembles the
08:30roads in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The remains of destroyed vehicles are scattered along the sides of
08:35the roads. The enemy is disrupting the supply with drones. This is seriously bad news for Russia and
08:42it's only going to get worse. Before we explain how and why, if this is the kind of insight you
08:47want
08:47more of, make sure you are subscribed to the military show. We break it down like this every single week.
08:55Ukraine's commanders have quite clearly realized that the M14 and adjoining roads are all that Russia has
09:00left to get supplies into Crimea, and they are keen to sever those final supply lines by
09:05any means necessary. Local residents are reporting that the Mariupol highway is quite literally
09:10burning and becoming impossible for military equipment to traverse safely. In response,
09:15some Russian military bloggers and commanders have been sounding the alarm, urgently calling for stronger
09:20defenses and new counter-drone measures to be installed in the area, such as camouflage nets
09:25to cover the road and create a barrier between the drones above and the vehicles below. So far, however,
09:31there have been no signs of any nets or other drone-proof protections being set up.
09:35Instead, the only major development on the Russian side came on May 21st,
09:39when Kherson governor Vladimir Saldo signed a decree to temporarily restrict the movement of freight
09:45vehicles along part of what Russia has started calling the Novorossiya or New Russia Highway.
09:51Saldo noted, however, that military vehicles are still allowed to travel this route,
09:55as well as trucks transporting other essential goods. His decision has been met with confusion,
10:00with one Kremlin-affiliated blogger saying that this will make it even easier for Ukraine's drone
10:05operators to strike military targets along the highway, as they will no longer have to worry about
10:09discerning between military vehicles and civilian ones. The Institute for the Study of War, meanwhile,
10:15says that Saldo's decree proves that Ukraine's tactics are working.
10:20Saldo's decision to restrict movement along the M14 highway indicates that Ukrainian strikes have made transport
10:26along this route much more dangerous and will likely affect Russian logistics along this route within occupied Ukraine.
10:32With fewer vehicles on the road, it's not just soldiers in Crimea that stand to suffer,
10:37but the region's civilians too. Indeed, we've already reached a point where Russia has been forced to
10:42introduce a fuel rationing system for cars in the port city of Sevastopol. There, on May 23rd,
10:48news agencies reported that the local governor, Mikhail Razvozaev, revealed that due to unspecified
10:53logistical challenges, fuel sales in the city, which is the largest in all of Crimea,
10:58have been restricted to just 20 liters or 5.3 gallons per vehicle until the situation improves.
11:04In turn, the mood and morale across the peninsula will continue to plummet,
11:08and if Ukraine can keep up its intensity, it may soon become utterly unfeasible and unsustainable
11:14for Russia to continue relying on the M14 at all. If that happens, the Kremlin will have no options
11:20left to safely move supplies into Crimea. From there, all Ukraine has to do is pick off the
11:25remaining Russian soldiers and military installations across the region, without having to worry about
11:30any damaged or destroyed assets being replaced. This is already happening. A detailed report from the
11:36Ukrainian news outlet Novny Live reveals that the Ukrainian defense forces are actively striking
11:41air defense systems across Crimea with increased intensity and regularity in recent days, forcing
11:48the enemy to relocate the few systems it still has left. Dmytro Pletenchuk, a spokesperson for the
11:53Ukrainian Navy, confirmed the country's forces are targeting Russian radars and missile launchers,
11:59and there have been numerous reports over the last year in particular, of important air defense
12:03assets being either damaged or destroyed, including the likes of S-300 and S-400 systems and Nebo-U radars.
12:11Pletenchuk says that more windows are opening up for Ukraine's drones and missiles to fly through the
12:15skies of Crimea and eliminate additional targets, suggesting that either Russia's remaining defenses are
12:21ineffective at stopping the work of Ukraine's defense forces, or there is indeed some kind of shortage.
12:27He went on to note that, thanks to additional strikes and pressure on the Kremlin's Black Sea fleet,
12:32Russia is not sending ships out, effectively. Currently, there are zero units at sea.
12:37That means that the Kremlin's forces can't even rely on warships and missile cruisers to help
12:42safeguard their stolen land in Crimea. And with fewer air defenses to guard its infrastructure and
12:47military installations, Crimea is increasingly vulnerable to aerial attacks.
12:52This was confirmed by Ukrainian aviation expert Anatoly Krapchinsky in an interview with NV Radio on May 19.
13:00According to Krapchinsky, Ukraine is starting to see Russian assets in Crimea as
13:05easy prey for unmanned assaults, adding that Kyiv is using both aerial and naval drones to wipe out
13:11what remains of the Kremlin's coastal defenses. Crimea has become shootable for us. The Russians
13:16understand that, although they keep trying to send more electronic warfare and air defense systems there.
13:21He went on to argue that as more of these attacks take place, Russia is gradually losing the ability to
13:27protect its facilities across the peninsula. He cited the numerous successful strikes on the
13:31Belbek airfield, for example, where Ukraine was recently able to take out a Pantsir S-2 air defense
13:37system, as well as multiple additional pieces of infrastructure, and has in the past eliminated
13:42MiG-31 interceptor aircraft and other important enemy assets. Summing up, the experts said,
13:48Crimea has become easy to shoot at, and Ukraine has achieved parity in the airspace there,
13:53but now through unmanned systems rather than manned aircraft. But parity is just the start.
13:59Ukraine doesn't want to just be on an even footing with Russia in Crimea. It wants to push the enemy
14:03out of the territory once and for all. Indeed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly
14:09expressed his desire to see his country reformed in its entirety, with every piece of land that Russia
14:15has seized, returned to its rightful owner. That includes not just the territories of Donetsk,
14:20Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia, but Crimea as well. And despite being so far from the front lines,
14:27Crimea seems to be turning into one of the easier territories for Ukraine to liberate.
14:31Its forces are successfully isolating the area, they are wiping out its defenses, and they are making
14:36it almost impossible for Russia to hold. That is a huge problem for Putin, in particular, who made it one
14:42of his own personal missions to make Crimea a part of Russia. It was supposed to be part of his
14:47legacy,
14:48one of the reasons why he'd be remembered as one of Russia's greatest rulers. And for years,
14:52he thought he'd pulled it off and gotten away with it, and he basked in the admiration of the countless
14:56Russian people who have since gone to make homes for themselves in the region or enjoy sunny summer
15:01vacations there. Now what Putin thought was his greatest victory is rapidly unraveling into his most
15:07embarrassing defeat. Ukraine is resting back control and effectively holds the future of Crimea
15:13in its hands, but it remains to be seen what it decides to do next. Some would like to see
15:18a
15:18full-scale siege of the territory, with Ukrainian troops marching in and forcefully taking back
15:23what's theirs. However, that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. It would be completely at odds with
15:28Ukraine's overarching strategy and focus on making the most of the resources at its disposal. An assault on
15:34Crimea would involve a huge amount of troops and resources, and it could open up gaps along the
15:39front lines for Russia to take advantage of. There's also no clear pathway through to the region just
15:44yet. Ukraine would first have to recapture lost land in the Kherson region before pushing onward into
15:49Crimea. Instead, what we're more likely to see is a continuous and increasingly intense aerial assault of the
15:55region. More and more drones will be seen hovering over the Mariupol highway, ready to strike any
16:00Russian military vehicles that dare to make the journey. It may soon become utterly impossible
16:06for Putin's forces to rely on this road, plunging the region into further chaos as the flow of fuel,
16:11food and munitions slows to a crawl. In the meantime, Ukraine's drones and missiles will likely
16:17continue to take out military assets across the peninsula, undermining the Kremlin's control and
16:22proving to the people living there that even the seemingly mighty Russian army isn't able to
16:26protect them after all. And it's not just in Crimea that Ukraine is making some big moves.
16:32You can learn more about how the country's forces are rapidly gaining momentum and turning the tide
16:36all along the front lines in this video. Alternatively, check out this video to see how
16:41Putin is also facing a potentially regime-ending loss of control over Russia's Far East regions,
16:47with China and North Korea moving in for the kill.
16:51Don't forget to subscribe to The Military Show for more breaking news reports,
16:55insights and analysis about the Russia-Ukraine war and other major conflicts across the globe.
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