First, the guests stopped coming. As Ukrainian drones and missiles hit Crimea throughout the spring and into the summer, Russian tourists began canceling their bookings at the small guesthouse Marina runs in Yevpatoria, a resort town on the peninsula’s Black Sea coast.
Then gasoline became scarce, making it harder to stock the business with food and other essentials. Now, electricity and running water are cut off for most of the day, just as the summer heat sets in.
“For 12 years they told us Crimea was 100% protected,” Marina said, referring to the promises Russian officials have made since seizing it from Ukraine in 2014. “And then, within a month, we’ve been thrown back into the Stone Age – no electricity, no water, no fuel.”
Since the start of this year, Kyiv has launched its largest sustained air campaign against Crimea, targeting both the peninsula and the land and sea transport links connecting it to Russia. Residents are facing the most severe disruption to daily life since its annexation in 2014.
It was the first Russian-controlled region to experience the acute motor fuel shortages that have since spread to Russia. The Kremlin-installed authorities last month declared a state of emergency and temporarily banned sales to private motorists in an effort to preserve supplies for the military and emergency services.
But as Ukrainian drones increasingly targeted the peninsula’s energy infrastructure, the crisis has quickly moved beyond gasoline. More than 70% of Crimea’s roughly 2.5 million residents have experienced some form of power outage, according to a Guardian analysis, while many have now gone several consecutive days without electricity or running water.
Interviews with more than a dozen residents across Crimea pointed to a growing sense of abandonment and frustration with both the Russian-installed authorities and Moscow, as Kyiv seeks to turn the peninsula “into an island.”
The festivals, summer camps, and beach events that once filled Crimea’s season have been canceled. In their place, long queues for gasoline and a daily search for somewhere to shower and charge a phone. “We’re surviving, not living,” one resident said.
Aleksei, a Crimean native who supported Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014, says his restaurant has been largely empty this summer as tourists stayed away, while shortages and disrupted supply routes have made it increasingly difficult to source fresh produce from outside the peninsula.
“The authorities kept insisting Crimea was ready for anything. Literally anything. It turns out the authorities failed to prepare for the worst,” he says. “People are hunting for fuel like it’s The Hunger Games.”
Like others interviewed by the Guardian, Aleksei asked for his surname to be withheld for security reasons. Crimea is home to one of Russia’s most pervasive and repressive security apparatuses, which has left many people fearful of speaking openly. Public expressions of dissent are rare.
Comments beneath officials’ social media posts have, however, become flooded with pleas for help from people who say they cannot contact relatives, buy food, or cope with the prolonged outages.
“Belogorsk has been without electricity for more than 70 hours, and all we keep getting are promises,” read one of dozens of comments addressed to Crimea’s Russian-installed head, Sergei Aksyonov.
Local Telegram chats have turned into improvised survival guides, with residents swapping tips on where fuel has just arrived, setting alarms for late-night vouchers.Her releases include sharing maps of the shortest queues and letting each other know which neighborhoods still have electricity or running water.
Since Russia seized Crimea in 2014, during the chaos of Ukraine’s Maidan revolution that ousted the country’s pro-Russian president, the peninsula has become one of the Kremlin’s most strategically important territories.
In 2022, Crimea served as the main launchpad for the invasion of southern Ukraine, where Russian forces advanced much faster than in their failed attack on Kyiv. Since the full-scale invasion began, its military infrastructure has been used for air strikes and battlefield support. Moscow has also encouraged hundreds of thousands of Russians to move to the peninsula.
The 2014 annexation—of what many Russians see as a desirable region with warm weather and beaches—boosted Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings. For years, annual celebrations marking Crimea’s “return” were carefully staged displays of Russian military power and national revival.
View image in fullscreen: The beach in Yevpatoria. Photograph: Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters
By targeting Crimea—long promoted by the Kremlin as the crown jewel of Putin’s rule—Ukraine hopes to strengthen its position in any future peace talks, says Rob Lee, a military analyst and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
“Ukraine has more leverage in future negotiations than it did before because it can now reliably strike almost any target in Crimea.”
Ukraine has focused its strikes on the main transport routes supplying Crimea, especially the Novorossiya highway, a key logistics corridor linking the peninsula to Russia’s Rostov region through the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol.
Ukrainian forces hit more than 240 Russian military trucks in the first week of July alone, according to an analysis of verified strike footage by French open-source intelligence analyst Clément Molin.
More recently, Ukraine has stepped up its campaign against Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov. Over the past week, Kyiv’s military said it had struck 90 vessels used by Russia to supply the occupied peninsula.
In a recent interview with independent Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev, an unnamed Russian general said Ukraine’s recent successes were partly due to Moscow diverting resources away from defending Crimea and toward its offensive in the Donbas.
View image in fullscreen: Fuel storage tanks burning after an attack in Kerch, Crimea, last month. Photograph: Vantor/Reuters
With the military leadership focused on capturing the remaining parts of the Donbas, the general said, Crimea had slipped to “third or fourth” on Russia’s list of priorities.
Lee says Ukraine has succeeded in producing large numbers of medium- and long-range drones, making it increasingly difficult for Russia to defend against them all. “The cost of these drones is low enough that it’s not prohibitively expensive for Ukraine to keep launching these attacks,” he said.
Map of Russian oil refineries struck by Ukraine
Military analysts on both sides believe Ukraine is likely to intensify its campaign in the coming weeks against the Kerch Bridge, which opened in 2018 to link Crimea to Russia, in an effort to deepen the peninsula’s growing shortages.
Successes in isolating Crimea have given Ukraine a much-needed morale boost at a time when Russian forces continue to make slow but steady gains on the battlefield, most recently advancing to the brink of capturing the strategically important city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine.
For Moscow, the crisis on the peninsula is an embarrassment it can neither hide nor easily fix. The Kremlin has instead tried to downplay the crisis.
During a meeting with senior officials last week, Putin instructed the government to urgently provide subsidies to Crimea and Sevastopol to finance fuel purchases and lower petrol prices on the peninsula. “These are tempora”Just temporary problems,” he said.
But in Crimea, many residents said the Kremlin’s reassurances only made them more frustrated. “They keep telling us these are just temporary problems,” said Dmitry, a university student. “We’ve been living like this for weeks. This isn’t normal life, and it can’t go on much longer.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the Ukrainian drone strikes that caused power water and fuel outages in Crimea during the summer
Basic Questions
1 What exactly happened in Crimea this summer
Ukrainian drone strikes targeted key infrastructure in Crimea knocking out power plants water pumping stations and fuel depots This caused widespread blackouts water shortages and fuel scarcity across the peninsula
2 Why did Ukraine target electricity water and fuel
These are the three pillars of daily life By cutting them off Ukraine aims to disrupt Russian military logistics and make it hard for Russian forces and civilians to operate normally
3 Does this mean Crimea had no power at all
Not everywhere all the time The strikes caused rolling blackouts and emergency shutdowns Some areas lost power for hours or days while others faced severe rationing It was a plunge into darkness in the sense that the grid became very unreliable
4 How long did the outages last
It varied Some outages lasted a few hours others stretched for days The damage was repaired but strikes were repeated so the problem was ongoing throughout the summer
Intermediate Questions
5 How can drones knock out a power plant
Drones can carry small explosive warheads They fly directly into vulnerable parts of a power plantlike transformers or cooling systemscausing fires and physical damage that take weeks to repair
6 How does losing electricity cause a water shortage
Most water pumps and treatment plants run on electricity Without power the pumps cant push water through pipes to homes and businesses So even if the water source is full it cant reach people
7 What happens to fuel supplies when power is out
Fuel stations need electricity to run pumps and payment systems Also refineries and storage depots are often targeted Even if fuel is available in tanks you cant get it out without power for the pumps
8 Did Russia try to fix the damage
Yes Russia sent repair crews and brought in backup generators and mobile power stations However the strikes were repeated making it difficult to keep everything running
Advanced Impact Questions
9 How did civilians in Crimea cope without water and power
People relied on bottled water stored supplies and generators Hospitals used backup generators There were long
