Ukraine Strikes Increasingly Isolated Crimea, Upping Pressure on Russia
Russian-installed authorities announced new restrictions on tourists visiting Crimea on Monday as Ukraine ups its strike campaign against the annexed peninsula, wreaking havoc with fuel deliveries and trying to isolate the territory from Russia.
Summer camps in Crimea and other tourist activities have been suspended until September, the Russian-backed governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said on Telegram.
Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, and which Kyiv has vowed to reclaim, is a popular tourist destination for Russians. It is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine, and the control of Crimea, along with other parts of Ukraine, that Russia has said it has annexed, is the thorniest issue of now-stalled peace talks between the two neighboring countries.
Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Crimea in recent weeks, using new medium-range drones to cut off the peninsula from Russia, disrupt fuel supplies and key logistics routes from Russia through to Russian-held chunks of southern Ukraine.
The country has paired this with a wider campaign on Russian oil facilities, including a refinery just a few miles from the Kremlin in Moscow.
Alongside attacks on land, Kyiv has doggedly targeted Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet around Crimea, seriously damaging or destroying at least a third of the fleet, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week that Kyiv was trying to turn Crimea “into an island.” Fuel stations stopped selling gas to the public in Crimea on Sunday, and Aksyonov said only government agencies would be able to access fuel supplies.
Crimea had already restricted fuel sales amid the persistent Ukrainian drone attacks. Mikhail Razvozhaev, the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Crimea’s main city, said no fuel would be sold in the area on Monday or Tuesday, except for emergency vehicles.
All outdoor events have been banned, streetlights have been turned off, and authorities in Crimea have said public transport timetables have been scaled back.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday “intensive” efforts to keep up fuel supplies and “minimize the negative consequences of the Kyiv regime’s barbaric actions,” according to Russia’s Tass state news agency.
Ukraine said on Sunday it struck several targets near the Crimean Bridge, commonly referred to as the Kerch Bridge, including two oil sites and four radars used by Russia’s advanced air defense systems to detect incoming threats.
The Kerch Bridge links Russia’s Krasnodar region and the peninsula. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the bridge, which was personally unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018 and is an appealing propaganda, as well as military, target for Kyiv.
Ukraine’s military then said on Monday the weekend’s strikes had damaged part of the Kavkaz oil port in Krasnodar and two car ferries around the bridge that were used to supply Russian troops in occupied parts of Ukraine.
Geolocated footage from Sunday showed three ferries on fire between Krasnodar and Crimea, according to the U.S.-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the operations were a “just response” to Russian attacks on Ukraine.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Frances Mao and Sam Wilson.
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This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 10:57 AM.