A middle-aged couple from Moscow and their teenage son began their summer vacation in the Black Sea beaches of Crimea this month, filling five-gallon gas cans and stocking up on food, as if they were headed to a war zone. Because, in many ways, it was. Idealized as a land of Soviet-era youth camps and resorts, Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally invaded and annexed in 2014, has become President Vladimir Putin’s most prized possession, a symbol of his vision of a Russia restored to superpower status and a key logistics hub for his military operations in southeastern Ukraine.
However, well into the fifth year of the war, that vision looks increasingly precarious. In recent weeks, Ukraine has laid siege to Crimea, using an increasingly sophisticated fleet of medium- and long-range drones to destroy roads and other infrastructure used by Russia to funnel troops and weapons to the front, Ukrainian security officials said. Drones have also attacked railway bridges, checkpoints, floating bridges and oil refineries, causing fuel shortages on the peninsula. Russian authorities in Crimea halted fuel distribution over the weekend, even to those with ration coupons, part of a growing fuel crisis affecting much of southern and western Russia.
As a result, the number of Russian tourists flocking to Crimea since its annexation has declined, eliminating the crucial summer holiday economic activity on which the peninsula depends. In the last few days, Ukraine’s effort to isolate Russian territory has intensified, as part of a strategy to make ordinary Russian citizens feel the war, which has also included major drone attacks against Moscow. In Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city with about half a million residents, fuel tanks were empty on Monday and Tuesday, and street lighting was turned off to save energy, according to Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev.
Water shortages are also being recorded throughout the peninsula. Residents have been urged to turn off air conditioners despite the high temperatures, and train services have been reduced for at least several days. Ukrainian drones also attacked three of the five vehicle ferries at the Kerch border crossing between Crimea and Russia’s Taman Peninsula, disrupting service and leaving some 700 vehicles stranded on the Kerch side overnight from Saturday to Sunday. The Artek children’s camp, located in southern Crimea and which was the most emblematic of the Soviet Union, and which Putin’s government has used as a symbol of state prestige, was forced to cancel its summer sessions and evacuate the children.
“I had read about burning tankers and drones, and I imagined we would be driving through something like a war zone,” said a Russian woman who, along with her husband and son, traveled to Crimea in early June. The family brought their own fuel cans. spoke with Washington Post on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals. “There were no drones, but there were tankers, some of them hit. We saw them. At gas stations, locals were queuing for eight hours or more to get fuel coupons.” Without constant and reliable access to Crimea, Russian forces could be hampered on stretches of the front they have recorded increased activity in recent months, where Ukraine has launched some of its most intense counterattacks.
“In the near future, Crimea will become an island. And this could have very unexpected consequences for the Russians,” declared Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov in a recent interview on YouTube. In late May, the Ukrainian military announced what it called a “logistical blockade” of Crimea, stating that it would “systematically destroy Russian logistics, warehouses, equipment, command posts and supply routes at high operational depth.” After the annexation, the geography of Crimea, with no land connection to Russia, posed a challenge for the Kremlin, which culminated in the construction of a bridge over the Kerch Strait, at a cost of approximately US4 billion. Putin inaugurated it in 2018, crossing the 16-kilometer bridge in a truck.
One of the stated goals of Russia’s large-scale invasion was to secure a land route from Russia to Crimea through occupied eastern Ukraine. The R-280 highway became that “land bridge” that crossed the captured Ukrainian cities of Melitopol and Mariupol. Advances in medium-range drones—Ukrainian-made ones operating via Starlink, and American Hornets with artificial intelligence—have tipped the balance of drone warfare in kyiv’s favor, enabling attacks across the land corridor into Crimea, including attacking fuel tankers on the highway. Russia calls the area “Novorossiya” – New Russia, a euphemism the Kremlin uses to refer to the occupied territories – while Ukrainian forces have nicknamed it “the highway of death.”
Since late May, Ukraine has also attacked oil terminals and refineries, along with three crossing points connecting Russian-occupied territory in mainland Ukraine to the peninsula: Armyansk, Henichesk and Chonhar. The latter was attacked at least three times in June, according to the Ukrainian military. A drone attack hit a railway bridge on the Kerch-Dzhankoi line, which Russian forces use to transport equipment and fuel to the southern front, causing a fire and threatening to paralyze freight and passenger traffic. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian drones cover the buffer zone, up to 320 kilometers beyond the front line, in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Unverified videos posted on social media show what appear to be destroyed Russian convoy vehicles smoking on the side of the road. “There are virtually no safe roads left for occupants in the south and east of our state,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a late-night speech earlier this month. “This shows once again that the occupier will not have calm times on our territory,” Zelensky declared. “This is also reflected in the shortages, especially of fuel, in Crimea and the other occupied regions.” The Kerch Bridge was severely damaged in a car bomb attack in Ukraine in 2022, which set fuel tanks on fire, and transportation of fuel across the bridge has since been banned.
That route remains the main route for Russian tourists to reach the beaches of Crimea, and millions of them come every summer, mostly by car, despite the war raging a few hundred kilometers to the north. Russian tourism associations report a 50 percent drop in bookings compared to May, as the chaos has deterred travelers. “There is no shortage of food; the only thing missing is buckwheat and sugar. We toured Crimea and the beaches were completely empty,” said the woman who traveled there with her family. “We didn’t see any traces of fuel oil in the water, although locals said there are sometimes stains on the rocks.”
Addressing hundreds of newly graduated Russian officers on Tuesday, Putin said that the West, through NATO, is preparing for war against Russia and is “increasing its offensive military budgets,” as President Donald Trump has urged. Almost 40% of the Russian budget goes to the armed forces, weapons and security. At a separate government meeting, Putin addressed drone attacks in Crimea and fuel shortages. The Ukrainian campaign “does not and cannot change the events taking place on the front lines… where Russian forces are liberating one settlement after another,” he said, giving no indication that the fighting will end.
This shows once again that the occupier will not have calm times in our territory.
The rest of the summer season in Crimea has not been canceled, but the situation remains precarious. Ardently pro-war military bloggers called on Crimean authorities to issue statements urging Russians not to risk travel. “I’m just curious: has there been any official announcement, recommendation or appeal to citizens not to leave for Crimea this summer? Or is an exciting mission awaiting us to evacuate two million (on average) tourists and vacationers?” wrote Dmitry Steshin, a reporter for Komsomolskaya Pravda, on his blog. “It would be better to do it as soon as possible, before the season starts, given the recklessness and lack of awareness of our fellow citizens.”
Alexander Sergeyev, a pro-Russian blogger who has lived in Crimea since the 2014 annexation, wrote: “Traveling to Crimea right now is DANGEROUS! We can see this with the attacks on trains, buses and cars that have caused fatalities.”