On the occasion of his conquest of Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir V. Putin later described the peninsula as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” and hailed Russia’s return there as a symbol of revanchist ambitions.
Now the Ukrainian military is bombarding Crimea with massive drone strikes, trying to transform it from a Russian-occupied fortress into a nightmare for the Kremlin.
All of this has shaken life in Crimea the most since Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula in 2014. According to Kostiantyn Mashovets, a Ukrainian military analyst, this has also resulted in some Russian forces switching to defensive operations along the southern front.
On Wednesday night, Russia bombed Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, killing at least 30 people, according to Ukrainian emergency services, in a deadly show of force after weeks of Ukrainian attacks.
Moscow has spent years fortifying Crimea, tripling its troop presence, deploying advanced air defense systems and coastal batteries and peppering the country with missile-launching systems. Fighter planes and bombers filled airfields, new ships joined the Black Sea Fleet and the $3.7 billion bridge across the Kerch Strait gave Russia direct access to Crimea.
None of this could change geography.
Crimea protrudes into the sea and initially leaves it vulnerable to Ukraine’s maritime drones. In the early years of the war, Ukraine targeted Russia’s naval headquarters in Sevastopol, drove its warships out of Crimean ports and turned the peninsula’s waters into a hunting ground.
However, their efforts to attack Crimea were limited by Ukraine’s weapons at the time. Now Ukrainian officials say their ever-evolving arsenal can cause even more pain, possibly enough, they hope, to bring Moscow back to the negotiating table.
“There is nowhere to hide in Crimea,” said Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a retired commanding general of U.S. Army Europe. “The Ukrainians have the ability to reach every single place where there is an air defense force, a logistics hub, an airfield or a headquarters.”
Russia’s air defenses are swarming
The current Ukrainian campaign in Crimea initially targeted the Russian air defense network.
In June alone, Ukraine said it targeted 31 air defense systems and radars, the most common military targets of its drone strikes.
The biggest success of these attacks, according to Ukraine, was the destruction of the $100 million Neva-B radar system, a facility capable of tracking targets up to 600 kilometers away. A drone video released by the Ukrainian military showed the attack on June 25. The New York Times could not independently verify whether it was damaged, but military analysts said it did not appear to be operational.
The attacks have exposed significant vulnerabilities in Russia’s defenses, which were originally built for traditional missiles and aircraft rather than drone fleets.
Pounding roads and bridges
With air defenses weakened, Ukraine then attacked supply lines.
After strikes on ships and the suspension of ferry operations, Russia is now solely dependent on narrow land and bridge corridors. Ukrainian forces are trying to cut them off.
The attacks on bridges have sparked a cat-and-mouse dynamic, with Russia rushing to repair the damage and Ukraine striking again.
Ukraine damaged one such bridge, the Chonhar Bridge, which connects Crimea to the southern Kherson region of Ukraine on June 7. Russia quickly constructed a makeshift pontoon bridge; Days later, Ukrainian drones struck the temporary bridge.
Over the past two weeks, Russia appears to have built a dam along the damaged bridge, which could be harder for drones to clear. Images from satellite imaging company Vantor showed construction vehicles working on the dam.
In addition to bridges and railways, Ukrainian drones targeted trucks, tankers and trains throughout the month. The burning shells of large trucks carrying fuel and derailed rail cars were filmed and photographed by civilians and Ukrainian military drones, highlighting disruptions in the supply chain.
Ukrainian military units released numerous videos in June touting their attacks in Crimea. These clips, showing first-person views of drones attacking military and logistics sites, have become a pillar of Ukraine’s war propaganda efforts to illustrate battlefield successes against Russia. The Times collected these videos, checked their locations and compared the impact locations with satellite images. The Times was unable to verify the full extent of the damage to Ukraine’s claimed targets.
Kateryna Stepanenko, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said Russian forces were increasingly trying to counter Ukrainian drone attacks by patrolling critical southern routes with drones and interceptors.
“But they need more mobile air defense to mitigate the impact of Ukrainian attacks,” she said.
Ukrainian commanders expect Russian troops to adapt, but said they would change tactics in return.
“Adaptation may take days, weeks or months, but we are constantly finding new ways to attack in any direction, at any depth and with any means at our disposal,” said Artem Bielienkov, the chief of staff of Ukraine’s 412th Unmanned Systems Brigade.
Turn off the power
Strikes against fuel facilities and the energy grid have caused widespread power outages in Crimea, prompting local authorities to declare a blackout emergency. Gas stations are running out of fuel and thousands of people have fled the peninsula since recent strikes began in Ukraine.
Throughout June, the Times confirmed Ukrainian attacks on oil and gas deposits, compression stations and power plants.
One of the Ukrainian attacks targeted an oil terminal at a port in the city of Kerch, producing smoke that was visible for miles.
On the same day, Ukraine struck an oil depot in the port of Kavkaz across the Kerch Strait, affecting Russia’s ability to transport oil between Crimea and Russia.
Another Ukrainian drone video from June 19 shows an attack on a gas storage facility near Dozorne.
Although the attacks have pushed some Russian forces into a defensive posture, Mr. Mashovets, the military analyst, warned that it could be weeks or months before Russia’s combat capabilities decline to the point where they could be forced to withdraw from positions in southern Ukraine.
“To achieve the ultimate goal, this blockade must be tightened,” he said. “This condition must be maintained for a sufficiently long period of time.”
Still, Crimea’s faltering power grid has “exposed the peninsula’s systemic vulnerability,” said Hennadii Riabtsev, a Ukrainian energy analyst. “The occupiers’ attempts to repair the damage to key facilities – such as the Tavria and Balaklava thermal power plants, large electrical substations and gas stations – are encountering complex technical and logistical problems,” he said.
The Ukrainian attacks have had a compounding effect, Mr. Riabtsev said, threatening to turn the peninsula into a “giant logistical mousetrap.”
