Crimea Strikes Aim to Force Russian Withdrawal, Ukraine's Drone Commander Says

Ukraine’s ongoing mid-strike campaign aims to force Russian troops to withdraw from occupied Crimea, according to Ukraine’s drone commander.

Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), told Reuters that Kyiv’s recent intensified strikes against logistics supplying the occupied peninsula aim to force a Russian withdrawal rather than push forward.

“We will isolate Crimea in the near future,” he said in an interview with Reuters published on Thursday afternoon.

“We will create conditions that will make it extremely difficult for any military personnel or those working in the defense industry to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or use the access routes to them,” he added.

The comments were published the day Kyiv launched another strike against two bridges over the North Crimean Canal, a road bridge on the Perekop-Armyansk route, and another bridge near the settlement of Stavky.

The strikes followed earlier attacks in recent weeks that led to the closure of multiple border crossings at the occupied peninsula, including the Chonhar bridge linking it to Russian-occupied territories in mainland Ukraine.

Officials from Moscow-installed governments in Crimea have reported fuel and goods shortages following the logistics disruptions.

The Guardian, in its Thursday report, said Kyiv also targeted the R-280 highway – referred to by Russian troops as the “Novorossiya” route – a critical supply line running from Russia’s Rostov-on-Don through occupied Mariupol and Melitopol toward Crimea via the Sea of Azov coast.

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A Ukrainian assault regiment suggested earlier this week that the route has effectively come under full Ukrainian fire control.

Brovdi corroborated the statement by telling Reuters that Ukrainian attacks had reduced traffic on the route by more than two-thirds in May.

He said Ukraine would gain full control over the route within another month, adding that hitting targets on the highway is “as easy as shooting partridges in an open field.”

Last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets had sharply intensified since February. Three weeks later, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the objective was a “logistics lockdown.”

Ukrainian drone units have not disclosed full operational details, but reports suggest the campaign increasingly relies on drone swarms targeting logistics infrastructure, including roads, railways, and bridges, in coordinated attacks that have reportedly surprised Russian forces.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian partisan group Atesh also claimed that Russian troops had withdrawn from the strategic Kinburn Spits in southern Ukraine as a result of the logistics strikes, with analysts previously saying in late 2022 that the narrow strip of land could pave the way to the liberation of Crimea.