State of Emergency Declared in Crimea, Traffic Jam of Cars Trying to Leave

Last week it looked like Russia’s control of Crimea was being challenged by a series of drone attacks on fuel supplies. Those attacks led first to shortages and then to rationing and finally to a ban on civilians buying gasoline. Simultaneously, all of the bridges in and out of Crimea were damaged by drone attacks, with the exception of the Kerch bridge.

Meanwhile the largest city in Crimea, Sevastopol was less impacted by the attacks than the rest of the peninsula. While most of the rest of Crimea had no fuel, Sevastopol was only limiting fuel sales two days a week. But a couple of days ago things changed when a drone strike set the electrical substations on fire. Much of the city went dark.

Today, after another massive wave of drone attacks, Crimea declared a state of emergency. Now thousands of cars have created a massive traffic jam trying to escape.

The authorities in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula controlled by Russia, declared a state of emergency on Friday after weeks of intense air attacks by Ukraine, including a wave of drone strikes overnight that appears to have been one of the largest since the war began…

Ukraine’s assaults on Crimea, meant to isolate the strategic Black Sea peninsula, have rattled everyday life there to an extent unseen since Russia illegally annexed the region in 2014. Gas stations in Crimea have run out of fuel, with local officials banning sales last Sunday. Summer camps have been canceled and children have been evacuated. Rolling power outages have crippled the territory, disrupting water supplies that rely on electric pumps.

Many Russians who had planned to spend their summer vacations in Crimea, a favorite holiday destination, changed their plans. Bookings in Crimea for July and August fell by over 30 percent compared to a year ago, and by 43 percent in Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant.

Tourists who had already arrived in Crimea were leaving. On Friday, thousands of cars were lined up on the Crimean side of the bridge linking it to the Russian mainland, with none on the other side waiting to enter, officials said.

The backup on the road to the Kerch bridge stretches for 10 kilometers. 

Кілометрові затори перед Керченським мостом – фото з супутника pic.twitter.com/hkSNxfxnkj

— Схеми (@cxemu) June 25, 2026

And these images are from June 24. The situation is likely as bad or worse now. Meanwhile, if you want to enter Crimea there is no wait at all.

According to the Russian-installed administration in occupied Crimea, there is currently no queue to enter Crimea from Russia via the Taman side of the Kerch Bridge.

Meanwhile, on the Kerch side, 2,450 vehicles are waiting to leave occupied Crimea for Russia https://t.co/uttKzIvaGK pic.twitter.com/W7vwluDtEZ

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 26, 2026

All of this happened after a large number of strikes earlier today.

Russia’s Tass state news agency said Ukraine fired more drones in the attack than it had during any previous assault in the last year. The Russian Defense Ministry said 660 drones were intercepted. The previous largest Ukrainian attack this year involved 556 drones, on May 17…

Ukraine’s national Security Service said that Ukrainian drones struck two military vessels and several air defense systems in the Kerch region of Crimea. Russian and Ukrainian channels on the Telegram social media platform reported a strike on the Azot chemical plant in Russia’s Tula region, which would be the second time the facility was targeted in two weeks.

One of the targets hit was a shipyard where several ships were still under construction including two used to lay undersea cables.

🔥🚢/1. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) says it struck two Russian military support vessels under construction at the Zaliv shipyard in occupied Kerch, along with elements of a S-400 air defense system protecting the Kerch Strait.

According to the SBU, the targets included… https://t.co/OY3zG0dxTF pic.twitter.com/KhYALzL6Al

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) June 26, 2026

🔥 A fire has been detected on the grounds of the Zaliv Shipbuilding Yard in occupied Kerch.

Two fire hotspots are visible in the plant’s harbor area, according to NASA’s FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) active fire monitoring satellite.…

— Militarnyi (@militarnyi) June 26, 2026

Obviously, none of this is good news for Putin. After he seized Crimea in 2014, Putin made it his special project. He built the Kerch bridge and new electricity generation plants. So the prospect of losing control of it must be driving him crazy right now.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army officer, told The Telegraph: “The imposition of a state of emergency for Crimea must be a disaster for Putin as, for the first time, government officials have publicly recognised that Crimea is becoming a disaster zone for the Kremlin and an open statement that the only way they can save the peninsula is by the imposition of what is in effect martial law.

“Crimea has hitherto been championed by the Kremlin as the great success story of Putin’s special military operation but is now becoming a sign that it is beginning to fail if not in full freefall.

“Putin cannot protect Moscow and now is in danger losing control of Crimea.”

In theory he could escalate. He could roll military support across the Kerch bridge, but with no fuel getting to the peninsula he’d have to bring that in as well. How long can he do that before the Kerch bridge is taken out as well?

And that raises and interesting question. Why haven’t the Ukrainians taken out the Kerch bridge? One military analyst has suggested they are leaving it open as an escape route on purpose.

“Ukraine Can Destroy the Crimean Bridge, but There’s a Reason It Hasn’t.”

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are sending a message to Russian troops.

The Crimean Bridge has not yet been destroyed in order to allow both civilians and Russian military personnel to leave Crimea, avoiding… pic.twitter.com/1uIPleQTnx

— Olena Rohoza (@OlenaRohoza) June 26, 2026

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are sending a message to Russian troops.

The Crimean Bridge has not yet been destroyed in order to allow both civilians and Russian military personnel to leave Crimea, avoiding the need to hunt down Russian soldiers in the peninsula’s mountains. This was stated by military analyst Kyrylo Sazonov during an appearance on News Factory.

“That’s why it hasn’t been struck again. Besides, the bridge is already partially disabled after previous attacks. Traffic is restricted, and several limitations are already in place. I believe it has been left standing so they can leave rather than be trapped on the peninsula. Above all, we want civilians to get out instead of remaining there,” he said.

According to Sazonov, Ukraine is also interested in allowing Russian troops to withdraw, since tracking them down in Crimea’s mountainous terrain could become a long and difficult operation.

“So it’s better to let them leave. I think that’s exactly why the bridge has been left standing—for now. After all, we are fully capable of destroying it,” he added.

Ukraine wants that 10 kilometer backup of fleeing cars. Those are probably mostly Russian vacationers fleeing home. They are happy to see them leave.

Putin will have to make some tough choices soon about what areas he wants to defend with a dwindling number of missile-defense systems. He can spread them out between Crimea and Moscow and St. Petersburg and major oil refineries but that risks some of the drones getting though.

Ukraine is copying some of the tactics Russia has used against it, using large numbers of drones to overwhelm air defenses. 

A Russian Pantsir missile-defense system, for instance, can engage no more than four targets simultaneously, said Valery Romanenko, a former Ukrainian air-defense officer and a researcher at Kyiv’s National Aviation University.

The first salvos in a drone attack help to identify the location of Russian air-defense systems, allowing the Ukrainians to determine where other unmanned aerial vehicles can find a way through, he said.

While Russia’s military has long been expert at jamming electronic signals, it has yet to match the variety of antidrone defenses that Ukraine has developed during the war.

“Russia air defense is set up to deal with crewed aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles around Moscow,” said Douglas Barrie, a specialist in military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in London. “One-way attack UAVs are a relatively new, and difficult, target set.”

Ukraine has claimed that Russia is moving more of its air-defense systems to Moscow to protect the capitol. That is going to leave other areas short.

In Moscow, an air defense system was installed directly on a residential building

The footage shows a helicopter with a Pantsir air defense system suspended on cables hovering over the residential complex “Avenue 77” — the tallest building in the Chertanovo district of Moscow. A… pic.twitter.com/knQSDqwtwz

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) June 26, 2026

How much longer can Putin afford to defend a peninsula connected by a single bridge which could be blown up at any time? It seems like we’re going to find out.

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