Russia’s grip on the strategically vital Kinburn Spit may finally be collapsing. Ukrainian drone strikes, shattered supply lines, and mounting casualties have forced Russian troops into a chaotic retreat from one of the most important positions in southern Ukraine. Why does this narrow strip of land matter so much for the Black Sea, Crimea, and the future of the war? In this video, we break down the retreat, the strategy behind it, and what could happen next.
00:00 - The Secret Russian Retreat
02:10 - How Ukraine Trapped the Army
05:41 - Why This Tiny Spit Matters
08:59 - Opening the Path to Crimea
11:48 - The "Isolate & Drone" Strategy
14:24 - What Happens Next?
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00:00 - The Secret Russian Retreat
02:10 - How Ukraine Trapped the Army
05:41 - Why This Tiny Spit Matters
08:59 - Opening the Path to Crimea
11:48 - The "Isolate & Drone" Strategy
14:24 - What Happens Next?
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastes.io/06ZPtihQ
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NewsTranscript
00:00Sitting at the tip of a peninsula and stretching 40 kilometers long and between 4 and 12 kilometers
00:06wide, the Kinburn Spit doesn't look like vital territory at first glance, but it is. This tiny
00:13parcel of land juts out into the Black Sea, sure, and it's the entry point into the Dnipro River,
00:18which snakes all the way to Kiev. Russia has controlled the Spit since 2022.
00:24Now Putin's forces are on the run. Tails have been tucked and tired Russian legs are
00:29carrying Putin's patsies as far from the Kinburn Spit as possible. Russia has been forced into a
00:35humiliating retreat on the back of a devastating Ukrainian strategy that has starved them out
00:40and caused massive casualties. One of the most important Russian retreats of the war
00:45is happening. This may be Putin's biggest defeat yet. On June 8th, the Ukrainian partisan group
00:52Ateche took the telegram to reveal its latest nugget of information about the Russian military.
00:56Ateche is interesting, though not officially part of Ukraine's military. The group contains
01:02covert agents who work alongside Ukrainian military intelligence to carry out everything from sabotage
01:07to reconnaissance operations on Ukraine's behalf. And at the Kinburn Spit, Ateche agents have seen
01:13something that nobody would have expected back in 2022. Russia's soldiers are withdrawing from the
01:18Spit. A key piece of strategic territory is on the verge of falling back into Ukraine's hands for the
01:24first time since Putin launched his brutal war. Ateche says that it has an agent operating within
01:30the headquarters of Russia's Dnipro grouping of forces, and this man on the inside has cast some
01:35interesting light on what is happening on the Kinburn Spit. Units of the 337th Regiment are abandoning
01:41their positions. Supply operations have come to a complete halt. The delivery of ammunition, fuel,
01:46and food has ceased, Ateche says in a telegram post, adding. Due to significant personnel losses, units
01:53of the 337th Regiment are being withdrawn from the coastline, from the northern and western parts of
01:58the Spit. Fire groups are unable to cope with the shooting down of UAVs of the defense forces of Ukraine,
02:04and losses continue to grow. There are some clues about why Russian soldiers on such a vital piece
02:09of territory are tucking their tails and running. A combination of devastating drone strikes against
02:14personnel and Ukraine's mid-range strategy, which is cutting off supplies, is to blame.
02:20These are both major problems for Russia's Dnipro forces, but Putin and his commanders have also
02:25created a rod for the 337th Regiment's back as they desperately scramble to respond to Ukraine's
02:31offensives elsewhere. That regiment has been plundered for personnel, which Russia is sending into
02:36Zaporizhia in an effort to prop up struggling forces against which Ukraine is counter-attacking.
02:41What has been left behind at the Kimburn spit are the stragglers. Soldiers who aren't deemed strong
02:46enough to take part in a key frontline battle are all that's left on the tiny scrap of territory,
02:51and that is a very real problem. Those soldiers are isolated. They know that no reinforcements are
02:57coming as their regiment is picked apart from the inside by their own commanders. All they have left to
03:03do is die to Ukraine's drones or run as far away from their positions as possible.
03:08It's flee or die for the 337th Regiment, and if Arteche's undercover agent is to be believed,
03:14many troops who were stationed on the spit are wisely choosing the former option.
03:18The result is that a massively depleted force is trying to hold onto a key piece of territory.
03:23Even as allies desert or are sent to other positions on the front, Russia can't hold out for
03:29long. Fragmented units still on the spit are vulnerable to Ukraine's drones and will struggle
03:33to get their hands on vital supplies of food and ammunition that might allow them to fight back.
03:38As Arteche puts it, only the remnants of units remain on the spit and they are no longer capable
03:43of maintaining a defense. The occupier's logistical system in this sector has completely broken down.
03:49This isn't just a humiliation for Putin and his patsies, it's a catastrophe. But it's also something
03:54that Russia should have seen coming for a long time. As small as the Kimburn spit may be in the
03:59grand
03:59scheme of the war, it's also a difficult piece of territory for Russia to hold. Being at the end of
04:05a peninsula, Russia doesn't have many options for accessing the Kimburn spit by land. There are only
04:10a couple of roads into the territory. Beyond that, Russia was able to keep its troops supplied via the
04:15Black Sea, but that isn't really an option anymore. According to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace,
04:20Ukraine now controls over 60% of the battle space in the Black Sea,
04:23following a brilliant naval campaign that has involved no warships and a whole lot of missiles
04:28and drones. The Black Sea fleet has withdrawn as far away from Ukraine's weapons as possible,
04:32and any mission to the Kimburn spit is now fraught with danger. That's a recipe for isolation of
04:38soldiers on a tiny scrap of land that can be easily targeted using drones, and this is precisely what
04:44we have seen. And Ukraine called it all. As far back as October 2024, the spokesperson for the
04:50Southern Division of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army Sergei Brachuk was claiming that it was only a matter
04:54of time before Ukraine's military developed the ability to retake the Kimburn spit. The liberation
05:00wasn't imminent, Brachuk said, but Russia's vulnerability on the spit didn't add up to an
05:04ability to hold the territory. The decision is made by higher command. Today we cannot say that an
05:10offensive on the Kimburn spit will happen immediately. This operation will be conducted in a comprehensive
05:14way using various means. The question is not whether to liberate Kimburn but when and according to the
05:20capabilities, resources and operational tasks we currently have, Brachuk declared. His words have
05:25proven prophetic. Less than two years later, the Russian withdrawal is happening. It truly will only be
05:31a matter of time before Ukraine liberates the Kimburn spit. Only now it's looking like a matter of weeks
05:36rather than years before it happens. But why does any of this even matter at all? The Kimburn spit is
05:42tiny,
05:42what difference could a few square kilometers of land at the opening of a river truly make to the
05:47Ukraine war? The answer is more of a difference than Putin wants to admit, as he and his Kremlin
05:52cronies have come to terms with the fact that they are on the verge of losing territory that they have
05:56been desperate to hold since the very beginning of the Ukraine war. The liberation of the Kimburn spit
06:01has the potential to be a game changer. But before we explain why, this is a quick reminder that you
06:07are
06:07watching the military show. If this is the kind of insight that you want to see, make sure you subscribe
06:12to
06:12the channel so you never miss one of our videos. To understand the importance of the Kimburn spit,
06:18we have to take a brief dive into its history over the last few years. As the Kyiv Post points
06:23out,
06:23Russian forces have occupied the Kimburn spit since the early months of Russia's invasion in 2022
06:29and up until now, they have proven very difficult to shake. Ukraine tried several times. Toward the end of
06:352022, Ukrainian commandos attempted an amphibious landing on the spit with the hope that they could use the
06:40narrow strip of land to flank the defensive positions that Russian soldiers were building
06:44on the occupied side of the Dnipro River. So we have some immediate strategic importance right
06:48off the bat, but it goes much deeper than that. The Kimburn spit isn't just about the battles along
06:53the banks of the Dnipro. This scrap of land has symbolic importance far beyond most of Ukraine's
06:58territory. And even more importantly, whoever controls the Kimburn spit is also perfectly positioned to
07:04attack or defend Crimea. The conversation made these very points in a December 2022 article that
07:11came in the wake of Ukraine's failed amphibious landing. It also noted the immediate strategic
07:16importance of the spit, noting that control over this patch of land also grants control over access
07:21to the Black Sea via the Dnipro River, as well as access to the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv. Russia has
07:28held that control for a long time. If Ukraine can force a complete withdrawal, it will open up a river
07:33route into the Black Sea that could be used for everything from merchant ships to maritime drones
07:38heading into the waterway to take out yet more of Russia's warships. But symbolically, the region is
07:43just as significant. Battles have raged over the control of the Kimburn spit for centuries. Russia took
07:49a clear interest in the spit as far back as 1737. It managed to wrest control over it in 1788,
07:56following
07:56the two battles of Ochaikov. While under Russian control, the spit and the port over which it enabled
08:01control were launching pads for several major naval battles. All of this matters because we know that
08:07Putin is a man who loves to refer to history. Or more accurately, the twisted version of history
08:12that he likes to use to justify his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has used his tenuous and self-serving
08:17grasp of history to claim that Ukraine was never a separate state and has always been a part of the
08:22Russian Empire. This is questionable at best. While it's true that Ukraine was only recognized as its own
08:27separate entity in 1918, as the University of Rochester points out, that doesn't mean it was
08:33always part of Russia or that its people are Russians, as Putin claims them to be.
08:37Russia wouldn't have been fighting over the Kimburn spit in the 18th century if that parcel of land had
08:41always been Russian. So what we're seeing with this soon-to-be liberation is a direct defiance of
08:46Putin's historical twisting. Russia holding the spit played into Putin's narrative. Now that his soldiers
08:53are running away, Ukraine is about to score a symbolic victory that will feel like a gut shot
08:57from Canelo Alvarez. Returning to the present day, there is the Crimea problem for Putin. As the
09:02conversation put it back in 2022, an attack from Kimburn towards Russian forces deployed between
09:07Kherson and Crimea, even on a relatively small scale, outflanks Russian forces and requires the
09:13Russians to divert scarce forces to deal with it. Not a lot has changed since that assessment, though
09:18Ukraine is unlikely to launch an attack from the Kimburn spit into Crimea. At least,
09:22not an attack that involves any sort of amphibious landing. Ukraine's strategy for Crimea mirrors
09:27that it used against the Kimburn spit only on a much grander scale. Isolate, starve out,
09:32shatter logistics, and force Russia to run. What the Kimburn spit offers to Ukraine is a perfect
09:38launching point for drone assaults, both against Crimea and Russian assets in the Black Sea.
09:43All of this means that we could see what Ukraine has just achieved as another piece of the puzzle in
09:47its unyielding pursuit of the liberation of the Crimean Peninsula that was illegally snatched away in
09:522014. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself has even claimed that the Ukraine war started with
09:57Crimea and will end with Crimea. As Russians run from the Kimburn spit, another step toward the
10:03liberation has been taken. But in the immediate sense, the advantages of taking the Kimburn spit
10:08are as much about what Russia loses as they are about what Ukraine gains. Russia can no longer close
10:14the exits to the Black Sea from the ports in Kherson and Mykolaiv, which open up opportunities for
10:19Ukraine to exploit Russia's weakened position in that waterway we mentioned earlier. Russia also
10:24loses the option of using the spit as part of an attempted assault crossing over the Dnipro River.
10:29That would have been a fool's errand anyway, as it would have meant Putin putting thousands of his
10:33soldiers in the firing line, but when did that ever stop Putin? This is a man who has sacrificed
10:38almost 1.38 million soldiers to the power of his ambition, so demanding a Dnipro river crossing
10:44isn't outside the realms of his insanity. More logically, if we can apply that term to anything
10:48that Russia has been doing in Ukraine, Putin's forces have been able to use the Kimburn spit to
10:53shell the Mykolaiv region. That shelling prevented Ukrainian forces from landing troops on the spit
10:58and beyond, and it's now going to be lost as the remnants of the forces that Russia stationed on the
11:03Spit either die or get out as fast as they can. The point we're making here is that a clear
11:08Russian
11:09advantage has been stripped away, and there's another advantage to what Ukraine has achieved
11:13that perhaps isn't directly impactful on the war, but has been caused by Russia.
11:18The Kimburn spit is one of the most interesting marine zones in Ukraine. Its ecosystem was enchanting,
11:23with black sea dolphins and an enormous amount of marine fauna, making the spit one of Ukraine's
11:28most beautiful spots. The environmental damage done to the spit by fire and oil has driven the
11:33dolphins away and destroyed so much plant life. Perhaps Russia's troops running away could be the
11:37start of the revitalization of a beautiful ecosystem, a touch of nature coming back to life
11:42in a war defined by metal, blood and oil. Putin will be left wondering how this could have happened,
11:48but the answer is plain to see if Russia has been paying attention even slightly to Ukraine's
11:542026 strategy. What has caused the soldiers of the Kimburn spit to run is a strategy that we're
11:59seeing play out all over Ukraine. Isolate and pelt them with drones.
12:03On the isolation front, Ukraine has spent much of 2026 striking Russian supply lines in the rear.
12:09Arteche makes this point, noting that key supply lines being disrupted,
12:12likely in the Crimea and Kherson regions, have resulted in Russia's spit soldiers failing to
12:17receive supplies of ammunition and food. After making the Kerch Bridge untenable for the Russian
12:21military through repeated strikes over the past few years, Ukraine has turned the focus of its new
12:26generation of mid-range strike drones to the land routes that are used to supply Russia's
12:30forces in the occupied territories. Ukraine has obtained partial fire control over the key R280
12:36highway that serves Crimea, links to Russia and also provides logistical arteries into southern Ukraine.
12:42Full control over Russian supply routes is still a long way off, but Ukraine's drones have already
12:46made every journey a risk. That naturally leads to delays, especially when bridges and chunks of road
12:51are blown to pieces. And it looks like Russia is prioritizing its forces on the front,
12:55ahead of the depleted troops on the Kimburn spit. We are seeing the results as Russians run.
13:00And with the announcement of its logistics lockdown program, which will see Ukraine invest
13:04almost 120 million dollars to support units that are crippling Russian logistics, it's smart to run.
13:10The supply situation on the spit is only going to get worse. Better to turn tail and run than to
13:15starve for a scrap of land, no matter how important that land might be to Putin.
13:19As for drones, we don't really need to say much here. Isolated soldiers on a small spit are easy
13:24targets for Ukrainian drones, and that's what we've seen on the Kimburn spit.
13:29Amphibious assaults aren't even needed anymore, as Ukraine now has drones that can travel hundreds
13:33of kilometers to strike. The Kyiv Post notes that Russia's soldiers on the spit have struggled to
13:38counter Ukraine's drones, which is a situation that hasn't been aided by Putin's generals diverting
13:43so many resources away from the spit. It's natural for Putin's patsies to fear Ukraine's drones.
13:48On June 4th, Unmanned Systems Forces, or USF, commander Robert Brovdy revealed that the USF had
13:54eliminated 100,000 Russian soldiers and struck 350,000 military targets during the first year of its
14:01existence. And the USF is far from the only Ukrainian unit that uses drones. Ukraine's flying monsters are all over,
14:08and there's no escape from them if you're a soldier who happens to be on the Kimburn spit when they
14:12arrive.
14:13These drones send a clear message to Putin's patsies on the spit. Run while you can, or the
14:18next drone strike will claim your life. So what happens next on the spit?
14:23The one caveat to all of this is that Russia's forces are starting to withdraw, but they're not
14:27completely gone. At least not yet. The spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces, Vladislav Voloshin,
14:33says that there are two roads running into the Kimburn spit, one paved and the other not, and Ukraine is
14:38working on gaining full fire control over those roads. The odds are that the control will come
14:42sooner rather than later, and when it does, any Russian soldiers on the spit will be screwed.
14:47Already starved of supplies, they will only be able to watch as Ukraine's drones destroy any
14:51convoys or supply trucks that attempt to reach them. If the soldiers don't leave, then Voloshin says
14:57Ukraine is happy to follow up fire control with more drone strikes. Of course, it would be very good if
15:02they left, but they are not going to leave. Therefore, effort will have to be made to destroy them
15:06and drive them out of the Kimburn spit, he says. The coming weeks and months are going to be painful
15:11for Russia's forces. Again, it's the same message. Withdraw now or suffer later.
15:16There is still work to do, but Ukraine is willing to do it, and with the liberation of the Kimburn
15:20spit, Ukraine will also complete the de-Russification of the Mykolaiv Oblast. That will sting Putin almost
15:26as much as the cowardice of his own soldiers. 2026 is a year that has been defined by Ukraine-liberating
15:31territory. On June 8th, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Aleksandr Siersky,
15:36revealed that Ukraine has retaken around 600 square kilometers of territory from Russia
15:41during the first five months of the year. Now Russia is on the verge of losing more.
15:45Only this time it's territory that has direct ramifications for Putin's plans for the Black
15:50Sea in Crimea. The latter is one piece of Ukraine that Putin absolutely cannot afford to lose.
15:56But as Russian soldiers run from the Kimburn spit, the liberation of Crimea is closer now than it
16:01has been since 2014. By the way, we mentioned the 100,000 troops that Ukraine's USF has wiped off
16:07the map a few moments ago. There's a lot more to that story. It has to do with everything that
16:11Putin
16:11wanted to achieve in 2026. The spring and summer offensives have failed. Russia's ground forces
16:16are losing ground as Ukraine's drone tactics become more sophisticated. Find out more by watching
16:22our video. And if you enjoyed this one, subscribe to The Military Show, check out more of our daily
16:26videos covering the war in Ukraine and military developments around the world.
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