Ukraine's Drone Strikes Squeeze Russian-Held Crimea
Relentless drone attacks on land and sea have cut fuel, water and power across the peninsula Russia seized in 2014.
Ukraine's drone campaign against Crimea has intensified dramatically in recent months, disrupting daily life for the roughly 2.5 million residents of the Russian-occupied peninsula, according to NPR.
"Transportation is completely at a standstill. No gasoline, no fuel, no power. The stores are closed. The banks are closed. Nothing works at all. There's no water either," one Russian woman said on social media.
Russia seized Crimea in 2014, and an estimated 1 million Russian troops and civilians have since moved there. Ukraine has vowed to retake the territory and has carried out periodic strikes for years, but the campaign has escalated sharply in the past couple of months, hitting Russian military facilities especially hard in the north of the peninsula.
"Putin's got a problem here," said Mark Montgomery, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral who regularly trains Ukraine's military. "You cannot keep that many people in a place with limited water, no fuel, limited foodstuffs. I mean, they're going to have to leave."
Ukraine's military says it has struck more than 130 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov and more than 80 in the Black Sea over the past month, targeting ships that deliver food, fuel and other supplies. Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk said Russia "overestimated its own naval power" and is now "at a logistics dead end," struggling to match Ukraine's sea drone technology.
Despite losing most of its traditional navy earlier in the war, Ukraine has become the first country to deploy sea drones operating on and below the water's surface, according to Montgomery, who called it "the most successful navy in the world without having a ship get underway for a day."
Russia, meanwhile, has struck back by attacking international cargo ships near Odesa that pick up Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil, killing 10 sailors in one recent attack, said Hanna Shelest of the Ukrainian Prism think tank. That has scared off most foreign shipping just as Ukraine hits peak harvest season, forcing it to rely on less efficient land export routes.
Analysts say Ukraine's forces are not positioned to launch a ground offensive to retake Crimea, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Fox News that Ukraine is not currently trying to recapture the peninsula outright.
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.
