There is a fuel crisis in Crimea. All because of a new wave of attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on fuel tankers and other trucks feeding the annexed peninsula along the P-280 Novorossiya highway. Just a few months ago, this route was considered a relatively safe route – but progress made by the Ukrainian military in developing drones has quickly changed the situation. American drones equipped with machine vision elements have appeared in the arsenal of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which, in fact, can direct themselves towards moving targets. How do these drones work? Why did the Russian Armed Forces lag behind the Ukrainian forces in creating their own “smart” drones (and what does Elon Musk have to do with it)? Does the Russian side have the means to protect almost its only route for delivering fuel and other products to the Crimean Peninsula?
The road to Crimea turned into a dangerous area for Russian trucks within a few weeks. Hundreds of cars have already been hit
In the second half of May, the Ukrainian Armed Forces sharply intensified drone strikes against trucks on the R-280 Novorossiya highway, which connects the Rostov region with the annexed Crimea. This area is located more than 100 kilometers from the front line, and is classified as “middle background.” Previously, the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not have the necessary tools to hit moving targets at such a depth, but they were very quickly able to hit hundreds of vehicles per week.
Under the blows He hits Mainly fuel tankers – civilian and military – and other trucks. Their travel across the Crimean Bridge became limited after the explosion in October 2022, so the route from Russia to the peninsula via the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions along the newly built road is the main route and there is practically no alternative.
attention. Some videos contain obscene words.
father the accounts French OSINT researcher Clement Moulin said over the past month, videos posted by both Ukrainian military and civilian drivers included attacks on nearly 200 vehicles; Of these recordings 80 were successful Geolocation. Most tellingly, at least 120 trucks were hit following May 20. This jump in the number of attacks quickly led to a fuel crisis in Crimea. In addition, Ukrainian drones are attacking railway infrastructure in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and in Crimea.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov Calls May campaign of “logistical isolation” of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. However, it is not yet clear how much impact the strikes will have on Russian military logistics.
Roads in the occupied part of southern Ukraine are used mainly by the Dnieper group (it occupies a long part of the front from the mouth of the Dnieper in the Kherson region to the Orekhov region and the famous Malaya Tokmashka in the Zaporozhye region). Russian forces, which had previously attacked the city of Zaporozhye along the Dnieper River, were forced to go on the defensive (and retreat in places). However, this happened even before the Ukrainian Armed Forces intensified their attacks on the “middle rear” of the Russian Armed Forces.
Also, through the Taganrog – Mariupol – Volnovakha line, the Vostok group advancing at the intersection of the Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions is partially supplied. So far there are no signs of its logistical exhaustion. Most convoys of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation go along secondary roads, however, the Ukrainian Armed Forces also carry out strikes on them, but more often they are captured on video.
If the problems with military logistics were not yet evident at the external level (either in southern Ukraine or near Donetsk), it meant that civilian supplies to Crimea were significantly disrupted. This is probably due not only to the physical destruction of fuel tankers and trucks, but also to the fact that civilian drivers and truck owners, unlike the military, do not want to take the risks of traveling along a dangerous route.
How did the Ukrainian Armed Forces manage to significantly increase the number of strikes against targets far from the front line?
Both armies have long developed techniques for striking the “middle rear.” It requires a broadband two-way connection with the drone to stream video.
At the beginning of the year, a division of the Russian Defense Ministry, NPO Rubicon, was at the forefront in implementing such technologies. Dozens of strikes were carried out weekly along the main supply line of the Ukrainian Armed Forces group near Pokrovsk (Dnieper-Pokrovsk road) with drones controlled via Starlink satellite communications (in the same way, the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck – and continue to strike – targets in Crimea).
The Ukrainian leadership has come up with an effective way to neutralize the threat. She contacted SpaceX owner Elon Musk, citing the Russian strikes as an “illegal use” of Starlink. As a result, all terminals located on the officially recognized territory of the country were disabled, except for those registered with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. The Rubicon temporarily lost the ability to strike tens and hundreds of kilometers. Since then, the Russian Armed Forces have been trying to replace satellite communications with mesh networks (the role of communication nodes in them is performed by drones), but this has only partially solved the problem for them.
The closure of Russian (smuggling) Starlink stations coincided with the beginning of a strong Ukrainian campaign of attacks on the “middle rear”. The success of the APU provided a breakthrough in the development of UAVs with machine vision elements. The main tool – the Hornet drone produced by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt – and its German and Ukrainian counterparts in early spring began attacking targets tens of kilometers from the front, especially near Donetsk.
For example, the rear city of Gorlovka was subjected to large-scale attacks. The Russian armed forces, which stormed neighboring Turetsk, fought for a long time to push the front away from this settlement and make Gorlovka a safe base. By 2026, the goal appears to have been achieved: Ukrainian forces have been expelled from Turetsk and the surrounding area; The Russian army seized the logistical corridors leading to Konstantinovka, located to the north.
But soon the targets in Gorlovka were attacked again by Ukrainian Armed Forces drones – this time autonomous drones (in the final leg of the flight, where two-way video communication is required). Probably, we are talking about Hornets (the Russian side called them “Martian-2”). how claim The Russian military studied the downed drones; Machine vision is used in the additional targeting phase at low altitudes. The target itself is selected by the operator, who controls the drone via the Mesh network (some – but not all – drones also use Starlink). Communication is usually worst at low altitudes (when a drone dives on a target): both because of the enemy’s use of electronic warfare (EW) and because of the low altitude itself, where the propagation of the radio signal is hampered by the terrain (radio horizon effect).
A few weeks later, hundreds of similar drones began attacking targets in the same place Highway To Crimeawhich was still considered safe: they were actively used not only by fuel tankers, but also by Russian tourists to bypass the unreliable Crimean Bridge.
The unexpected mass appearance of high-precision Ukrainian drones in the “middle rear” of the Russian Armed Forces produced a powerful propaganda effect: it is in this area that Russian “military correspondents”, volunteers and other supporters of the war with a large media audience are most often located. Some of them have been “selling” to readers for years the narrative according to which the Russian army continues to fight despite the opposition of corrupt commanders. “The dominance of the Ukrainian armed forces in the air” is a traditional theme for this group of critics.
The Russian Armed Forces have been trying to use drones with machine vision elements since 2022-2023. Thus, Russian scalpels acquired the ability to independently target targets (which increased their range, but, at least at the initial stage, reduced their accuracy). Since then, the Russian army and military industry have continued to develop artificial intelligence technologies. The fact that the Russian Federation is not among the leading countries in the development of artificial intelligence models does not matter: the military Focused About creating application tools based on existing Western and Chinese models. So, given the technological foundation of the Russian military, we should expect that it will try to catch up and outpace the Ukrainian armed forces in the use of Hornet drones.
How can Russia try to protect itself from the wave of attacks that have made the road to Crimea dangerous?
As with other drone defenses, there are passive and active countermeasures.
The first includes physical protection (for example, installation of networks on roads) and defense in the electromagnetic spectrum – various electronic warfare systems.
- The first method can be very effective: Hornet drones are low in maneuverability and cannot fly into gaps in netting (unlike frontline attack FPV drones, which often make their way even inside netting fencing). However, it is difficult to imagine that the Russian Armed Forces will be able to quickly cover more than 700 kilometers of roads from the border with Russia in Mariupol to the entrance to the Crimean peninsula in Chongar.
- In the second option, the problem is that Hornet drones have several communication systems: satellite navigation, radio signals through repeaters, and sometimes satellite communications and control (these include fully autonomous drones).
In addition, the Russian military is also trying to fool the artificial intelligence, that is, the computer vision systems of enemy drones. Yes, they appeared image Truckspainted a “zebra”. Probably, the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces believes that since zebras can interfere with the “aiming” of predators with the help of striped coloring, the hornet’s guidance system can also be brought down.
Active measures – that is, various air defense systems (ADS) – can be effective if they do not need to cover a large area from attacks by hundreds of drones per week. To reliably combat this threat, it will require massive forces: conventional short-range air defense systems, mobile fire brigades equipped with machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, patrol helicopters, and perhaps the most effective means, teams equipped with anti-drone interceptor drones. The latter also uses machine vision to target targets.
I mentionedRubicon had previously transported such groups with Yelka interceptor drones and other “small air defense” systems from the front to the Taganrog-Crimean highway area. Naturally, such maneuvers weaken anti-drone groups at the front and in the “near rear” – that is, 10-15 kilometers from the line of contact, where the Russian Armed Forces face tens of thousands (!) of drones.
“Analysis” section