Ukraine has given Vladimir Putin a fresh headache.
Kyiv has opened a new front in its blockade of Crimea, striking a growing number of Russian vessels in the waters near the occupied peninsula as it ramps up pressure on the Kremlin to end the war.
Kyiv is using its expanding fleet of long-range drones to carry out its largest campaign in the Sea of Azov since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.
Improvements in drone technology have only recently put the sea, which is surrounded by Russia and Russian-occupied territory, within reach of Ukrainian pilots. The drones have formed the backbone of weeks of attacks on Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, as Kyiv tries to expose Putin as unable to defend it.
Ukraine has hit power stations, military infrastructure, fuel facilities, and the roads and railways leading into the peninsula, triggering power cuts and fuel shortages that Putin has vowed to fix with increased sea deliveries. The Ukrainian military says it has struck dozens of vessels, including tankers, cargo ships and auxiliary boats, as part of an effort to “systematically disrupt the enemy’s logistics chain.” It announced that the first round of strikes in the Sea of Azov had wrapped up and that it had begun targeting Russian ships in the neighboring Black Sea. It remains unclear what the struck vessels were carrying.
With peace talks stalled, Ukraine appears intent on bringing the war home to Russia itself. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov condemned the strikes, calling them worse than piracy.
The naval campaign comes on top of a punishing drone war over Russian territory. Defense Ministry briefings compiled by the state news agency RIA Novosti show Putin’s forces were forced to shoot down 64,000 Ukrainian drones during the first six months of the year, with monthly totals surging from around 5,400 in January to roughly 18,000 in June.
The onslaught has knocked more than 25 percent of Russia’s refining capacity offline, The Wall Street Journal reported, setting off a fuel crisis that has forced the Kremlin to ration supplies and left citizens waiting outside gas stations for up to two days.
Putin’s response so far has been a promise to build more air-defense systems, an implicit admission that he does not currently have enough. Every battery deployed to guard a refinery is one pulled from somewhere else.
“There are simply many more drones at one target now than before, physically punching through the defenses, like a medieval cavalry wedge,” a senior Russian energy executive told the Financial Times. “The defenses that used to work cannot sustain such pressure. This is the new normal.”
The fuel shortages have hit roughly 50 million people, about a third of Russia’s population, marking the worst supply failure the country has experienced since the fall of communism. Gas station waits in some regions have stretched to several days, stoking fears of public unrest.
