Middlestrike: how Ukraine paralyzes supplies to occupied territories

By the end of May, Ukrainian mid-range drones paralyzed cargo traffic in a significant part of the occupied territories, causing a fuel crisis in Crimea, an energy blockade of the eastern Kherson region and disruption of military transport in the Donbass. Nikolai Mitrokhin* writes about this, analyzing the sharp increase in strikes of the new generation of drones - “middle strike” drones, capable of reaching targets at a distance of up to 200 kilometers from the front line.

The second half of May passed in intense competition between several events that determined the prospects for war and peace in the coming months. The sudden deterioration in relations between Ukraine and Belarus, associated with concerns among Ukrainian military officers and politicians about a possible invasion of Russian troops from its territory into Ukraine, was the first of these. The hysteria of the Russian officialdom about the Ukrainian attack on the “children” at the Starobel Pedagogical College became the second.

Drone breakthrough

But based on the results of the crescent, the most important event can confidently be called a sharp and even sudden increase in attacks by Ukrainian medium-range drones (up to 200 km), which by the end of the month led to the paralysis of cargo traffic in the occupied territories of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, an acute shortage of automobile fuel in Crimea, an energy blockade of nine districts in the eastern part of the Kherson region and a sharp reduction in military and cargo transportation in the central part of the occupied territories of Donbass (Donetsk agglomeration and areas east and south of it, up to Mariupol).

The rapidly growing panic in online media and even in the statements of officials led to the fact that the intellectual and political guru of the Russian “military leaders”, the former head of the Russian paramilitary interventionists in the Donbass, Igor Girkin, wrote on his blog on June 1 from a colony warning that what was happening was reminiscent of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ preparation for a large-scale ground landing operation on the left bank of the Dnieper.

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