Ukraine Moves Battle Lines With Its Mid-Range Drones

Rewriting the rules of war, Ukraine first created an “Army of Drones.” This stalled Russia’s own army behind a deadly, 20-mile no man’s land. Then Ukrainians built long-distance drones, capable of hitting oil refineries 2,000 miles to the east. Today, in a message to the world, Ukrainian one-way drones hit and set afire an oil terminal 10 miles from President Vladimir Putin’s prestigious “Russian Davos.” As hundreds of guests gathered for the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, explosions echoed across Russia’s second-largest city and columns of black smoke rose in the air. One drone hit a warship at Kronstadt Island navy base, 30 miles from the convention center, President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on X.Now, with private American help, Ukraine has opened a new front, peppering once-safe areas behind the front lines with mid-range drones. Far from prosaic, these drones are turning all of Russia-occupied Ukraine into a free-fire zone. Following a “Logistical Lockdown” battle plan, Ukrainian drone teams compete among themselves to blow up Russian ammunition trucks, food supply trucks, and fuel tankers.In the space of the last two weeks, Russia-occupied Crimea has gone from gas stations stocked for summer vacationers, to rationing coupons, to enduring gas lines. Yesterday Crimea’s two largest gas station chains started to post signs reading: “Benzina Nyet,” or “No Gasoline.”For the Kremlin, the bombing campaign is more serious than 2 million Russians having their Black Sea vacation plans ruined. Almost 300 years ago, the King of Prussia said: “An army marches on its stomach.” Today’s army, even a poorly reformed post-Soviet one, moves on diesel, food, and ammunition.Black smoke is seen over the port of St. Petersburg on June 3, 2026, after a Ukrainian drone attack. AP“This tactic is perfectly consistent with military art. It’s called ‘battlefield isolation by cutting off enemy communications at great depth,’” jailed Russian nationalist Igor Girkin warned last week on Telegram. “Why is this dangerous? It’s dangerous not only because Crimea is being cut off from supplies, but also because our troops” in occupied Ukraine “will no longer receive necessary supplies.”“They isolate the battlefield, making it impossible to quickly transfer reserves and supplies,” warned Mr. Gherkin, an army veteran who led Mr. Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine, in 2014. “Therefore, we should expect in the near future, in June, a possible … attempt by the enemy to attack Crimea , to land troops.”From the opposite side, agreement comes from the Ukrainian defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. On announcing “Logistical Lockdown” last week, he posted on Telegram: “Our task is to further increase the pressure on the Russians in their rear and deprive them of the ability to conduct active assault operations … The enemy, even at a great distance from the line of combat, will no longer feel safe.”With the air thick with drones, a pro-war Russian blogger, Rybar, worries about the outlook for Russia’s army. Ukraine’s new mid-range strikes are “becoming increasingly threatening,” Rybar’s Telegram channel posts. “Attacks on cargo carriers on the peninsula directly impact the combat capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces on the southern fronts, where the situation is already precarious.”A commercial building burns after a Russian attack on Kyiv, Sunday, May 24, 2026. AP/Evgeniy MaloletkaA third Russian military blogger channel, Fighterbomber, writes on Telegram: “The waiting list for [Crimea] car ferries is up to five days. There’s simply no one willing to drive tanker trucks through the new territories.”These “new territories” are four southern regions of Ukraine that Mr. Putin annexed in September 2022. After years of fighting, he still does not yet control this area. To give a historical patina to his claim, Russia’s president refers to them with a Tsarist-era term, Novorossiya, or New Russia. The symbol of Russia’s occupation is the Novorossiya Highway, a $400 million, 400-mile divided highway that ties mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula. Two weeks ago, Ukrainian drones prompted Russian occupation authorities to curb civilian traffic on this “land bridge” linking mainland Russia and Crimea. In an echo of American wagon trains moving through hostile territory in the 19th-century West, Russia now assembles military convoys to try to drive through its “liberated” lands.Hoping to avoid detection by enemy drones, convoys travel after dark, often on rainy nights. The government has imposed a minimum speed limit: 75 miles an hour. Even so, roadsides are littered with burned out hulks of tractor trailers and military vehicles. Open-source monitoring group Tochnyi geolocated 55 strikes on Russian logistics vehicles in April and 130 strikes in May.President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall at Moscow, May 9, 2026. Alexander Nemenov/pool via APMr. Putin’s pet construction project now is patrolled by Ukrainian Hornets, fast, lowflying kamikaze drones. Manufactured by the Swift Beat company, formed by Google’s former chief executive, Eric Schmidt, these drones are largely autonomous. They are programmed by AI to seek out the profiles of Russian military vehicles. Carrying a 10-pound warhead, a Hornet can range 120 miles behind a front line, a rear guard area that traditionally was considered safe.“Our troops are now capable of reaching Russian military logistics across virtually the entire depth of the temporarily occupied territories,” Mr. Zelensky said Monday in his nightly video address. “In practice, there are almost no safe roads left for the occupier in the south and east of our country.”In addition, he said Ukraine’s long range drones and missiles have hit 15 Russian oil refineries since January. He added: “This is also reflected in shortages, above all fuel shortages in Crimea and in other areas that remain under occupation.”For his part, Mr. Putin is apparently frustrated by the military stalemate caused by the drones. Lashing out at Ukraine yesterday, he fired 73 missiles and 656 drones at Ukrainian cities. Of the drones, 92 percent were shot down. Of the missiles, 55 percent were knocked down. However the projectiles that got through killed 22 people and injured 130, almost all civilians. It was the third major attack against Kyiv in three weeks.President Volodymyr Zelensky at Middelburg, Holland, April 16, 2026. AP/Peter DejongIn Crimea, the gasoline shortage hits just as the summer tourism season starts. In chat groups, drivers recommend carrying to the peninsula five 5-gallon jerry cans of gasoline. Fuel sales are increasingly limited to soldiers. The Kerch Strait bridge, another Putin prestige project, has been so weakened by kamikaze sea drones that train and truck freight traffic is restricted. Drones have knocked out three of the four ferries to the peninsula.Yesterday, Ukrainian drones severely damaged the train station at Dzhankoi. At the northern tip of Crimea, this city was long considered to be the gateway for visitors traveling by train or car from Moscow. At Feodosia, the peninsula’s largest petroleum products tank farm has seen Ukrainian drones burn 30 of 33 tanks.With refineries going up in flames, Russia’s government has banned all exports of gasoline and jet fuel. The Kremlin’s fear is that a summer of gas lines will push Russia’s population to rebel.

Ukraine Moves Battle Lines With Its Mid-Range Drones

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