Ukraine’s Drones Blockade Crimea, Forcing Russia To Close Key Grain Export Corridor

As Ukraine tightens its blockade of Russia-occupied Crimea, residents of the peninsula are paying $16 a gallon for gasoline, the highest price in the world. Sky-high prices in the world’s third-largest oil producer point to a big power shift in southern Russia, one that has the potential to shake Vladimir Putin’s hold on power.In one of the most intense naval campaigns in modern history, Ukraine says that over the last 10 days its drones have hit 147 Russian vessels. Most ships were supplying food and fuel to Mr. Putin’s cherished Crimea. The land route to Crimea, Mr. Putin’s four-lane Novorossiya Highway, is now known by truckers as “The Highway of Death.” Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander, Major Robert Brovdi, says his drones hit 360 trucks in one week.On the peninsula, food prices are soaring, week-long power blackouts are causing food to spoil, and family cars line up by the hundreds to drive across the last bridge to the mainland. In one video posted on the Russian internet, a father of two girls says he is happy to drive five days and 3,000 miles to take his family back to their hometown of Barnaul. The face of what looks like middle class refugees, this family is trading Russia’s Florida for Western Siberia.Cars line up at a Lukoil gas station at Moscow on June 30, 2026. Alexander Zemlianichenko/APThe blockade promises to get worse for the 2 million residents of Crimea. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry warned last week: “There will be no gasoline. You can stop waiting. The game is just beginning.” The long-range drone strategy is not expected to diminish with yesterday’s removal of the 35-year-old “tech bro,” Mykhailo Fedorov, who served for the last six months as Ukraine’s defense minister. Last Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree to create “a long range command” to ensure sustained attacks on Russia.For Mr. Putin, the strangling of Crimea is a huge political blow. During his quarter-century in power, the president’s popularity peaked in opinion polls taken shortly after the March 2014 annexation of the peninsula and the adjacent Sea of Azov. He has said the peninsula, first annexed by Russia in 1783, had a “sacred meaning” for the nation. He compared it to Israel regaining control of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.Equally important, although less known to Americans, is Russia’s sudden loss of control over the Sea of Azov. Russia is the world’s largest grain exporter. A quarter of these exports reach the outside world through a Soviet-era canal system that feeds into the Azov, through Kerch Strait, and into the Black Sea. A Russian military landing ship sails near Kerch, Crimea, on July 17, 2023. APThe Volga-Don Canal carries 15 million tons of grain and oil between southern Russia and the Azov. Built in the late 1940s by German prisoners of war and gulag inmates, it was officially listed as one of the “Great Construction Projects of Communism.”Today, with a bumper wheat harvest of 50 million tons expected in coming weeks, Russia’s three largest ports on the Sea of Azov have stopped accepting grain shipments. The ships are not there. Ukraine’s strategy has been to hobble, but not sink, the tankers and cargo ships that ply this shallow sea. Air attacks have been so devastating that Russian authorities on Friday closed the Azov to all shipping.“If things keep going this way, we are going to end up with a Strait of Hormuz of our own, where Ukraine will play Iran and we’ll be the U.S.,” a pro-war Russian blogger, Military Informant, lamented last week on Telegram. In recognition of the region’s importance for feeding the world, the Black Sea has been called the Persian Gulf of grain.While the world press is largely oblivious to this brewing crisis, global markets have taken notice. Over the last two weeks, wheat futures have jumped by 20 percent. Since the start of June, Russia’s main stock index, the MOEX, has fallen by 21 percent. Russian officials say they are lining up alternative export routes, largely through the Black Sea. However, Major Brovdi says he is shifting to Russian shipping on the Black Sea. “The first round of the maritime battle is over. Now it’s the Black Sea,” Major Brovdi wrote yesterday on Telegram. He announced that his drones have hit 30 Russian vessels in the Black Sea. After earlier ravages by Ukrainian sea drones, the remnants of Russia’s once-formidable Black Sea Fleet now largely stay at the port of Novorossiysk. There, the mouth of the harbor is protected by steel nets.Warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in naval drills. Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP In one exception, on Tuesday, controllers of a Ukrainian Sargan-3000 sea drone found a Russian Coast Guard patrol vessel, the Izumrud, outside the walls. The drone rammed the vessel, causing an enormous explosion.With prospects looking bleak for Russian shipping, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, lashed out Tuesday, telling reporters at Moscow that Kyiv’s campaign is “beyond even piracy.” He said: “Pirates at least rob and keep the loot for themselves. But here, it is a case of ‘neither for themselves nor for others’ — the goal is simply to cause damage and intimidate. It is terrorism.”To this, Ukraine’s drone commander, Major Brovdi, responded: “No piracy, Lavrov, just business.”Russia is trying to retaliate with a grain war of its own. Ukrainian farmers complain that Russian drones are dropping incendiary bombs to torch grain fields. Recently, Russia sent its latest model, jet-powered, Geran-4 drones to hit ports in the Odessa region. Russia’s Defense Ministry said yesterday that the drones hit four cargo ships and infrastructure at two ports.The Black Sea and adjacent areas. NormanEinstein via Wikimedia Commons CC3.0To beef up defenses against Ukrainian drones, Russia has moved from the Arctic dozens of air defense batteries to protect Moscow and refineries in southern Russia, Radio Free Europe reported Tuesday. Analysis of satellite photos show that S-300 and S-400 missile systems have vanished from military installations in the far north.The moves comes as, night after night, Ukraine hits Russian refineries. Reuters’ latest estimate is that 40 percent of Russia’s gasoline making capacity has been knocked out, probably until the fall. The trend line indicates that half of the nation’s refining capacity could be offline by the end of this month.For Russia’s 60 million car owners, the prospect of going cold turkey is chilling. In Siberia, police arrested a man who donned a police uniform bought online and tried to jump to the head of the gas line.In Novorossiysk, residents blocked a tanker truck and demanded that the driver distribute gasoline on the spot. In Kazakhstan, a southern neighbor of Russia, authorities have set up 59 police border checkpoints to stop Russians from shuttling gasoline into Russia.Videos of fist fights between drivers are common. One photo that went viral shows a driver scanning the horizon with binoculars, trying to see movement at the head of the line. At Volgograd, drivers pitch tents and sleep overnight to keep their places in line. “This [vulgarity] fuel costs more than a liter of milk,” exclaims one Crimean driver on a regional news channel, Krimsky Veter. “It’s more expensive than vodka. It works out it would be better to pour liquor into your car and drive on that.”

Ukraine’s Drones Blockade Crimea, Forcing Russia To Close Key Grain Export Corridor

Ukraine’s Drones Blockade Crimea, Forcing Russia To Close Key Grain Export Corridor

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