Ukraine has intensified drone strikes on Russia’s logistics network around Crimea, and the pressure is now reaching the electrical substation-linked supply system that feeds the peninsula. President Putin ignored a major Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow while hosting the Russia Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kazan.
The latest campaign has focused on the R-280 Novorossiya highway, which runs from Russia’s Rostov region to Crimea via the occupied territories and offers an alternative to the Kerch Bridge. Heavy duty trucks cannot cross the Kerch Bridge, private logistics carriers are struggling to get insurance for vehicles, and truck freight is being moved in long vulnerable convoys.
Kerch Strait ferry route
Ferries across the Kerch Strait have been struck by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since 2024, and all three ferry vessels are out of service. Trucks have been rerouted onto secondary roads and protected by soldiers, while trucks appear to be locked in traffic jams attempting to cross the pontoon bridge by the damaged Chongar bridge.
The land corridor is the only route to supply the occupied territories of the south and east. Bridges such as the Genichesk, Chongar and Armyansk rail and road passages have been hit, and pontoon bridges remain only a temporary emergency measure.
Crimea rear logistics
Fuel storage in warehouses on the peninsula is problematic because attacked sites risk explosions. The problem extends to the Russian occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk and to parts of Russia’s south such as Belgorod, putting the same supply chain under strain across several linked routes.
Russia had believed these logistics routes were deep behind the frontlines and relatively immune from attack, but the attacks have proven them vulnerable. Pontoon bridges cannot support large axle loads, and they cannot be adequately defended by Russian air defences, which leaves trucks and ferries as the weakest links in the system.
Putin in Kazan
At the same time, the attack on the Kronstadt naval base and oil refineries around St Petersburg coincided with Russia’s SPIEF economic forum. Putin’s decision to carry on at the Russia Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Kazan while a major drone attack hit Moscow put the burden on the rear logistics network rather than on any single crossing.
For people relying on the Crimea supply corridor, the immediate reality is that the route now depends on a damaged bridge, temporary pontoons and convoy protection. The open question is how long Russia can keep Crimea supplied if the Kerch Bridge, ferries and pontoon routes remain under pressure.
