The Situation in Crimea is INSANE Right Now

The situation around Crimea right now is

absolutely mind-blowing. And in my

opinion, Crimea is quickly becoming once

again one of the most interesting

theaters of the entire war in Ukraine.

About a year ago, I started making

videos about Crimea, talking about how

Ukraine was systematically putting the

peninsula under siege and that in fact

Ukraine was executing a strategy that

would eventually, not immediately, but

eventually over time allow Ukraine to

potentially take Crimea back from

Russia. At the time I posted that, the

Russians absolutely mocked me. They

actually made several response videos to

my video, which is pretty rare even for

me. And they told me that the things I

was saying were impossible and that they

would never actually happen. So you can

imagine my satisfaction when over the

past couple of months, the things I

talked about a year ago are not only

starting to happen, but many of them

have actually already been completed.

And today we reached a big milestone

where in many ways Crimea has been

totally cut off. But this didn't just

start today. What I want to talk about

today is a systematic campaign that

Ukraine has been executing against

Crimea for the past several months. A

ramp up of the action that I was already

talking about over a year ago. And this

systematic action involves a couple of

different things. First, it involves the

air defense systems around Crimea. And

second, it involves the supply routes

going into Crimea. And thirdly, it

involves the actual storage facilities

in Crimea that allowed them in the past

to sustain disruptions in their supply

routes. Right now, Crimea has reached a

point where all of these different

systems are offline all at the same

time, and it is putting the peninsula in

the weakest position it has been in, in

my opinion, for this entire war. Now, if

you follow the channel regularly, you

can obviously see that I touch on a lot

of hot button issues. And naturally,

people are constantly disagreeing with

me. Because of that, I find it

incredibly important to base my analysis

on a factual foundation, not just for my

own integrity, but also for my own

sanity. I have a tool that I use that

helps me prepare for this, and that tool

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back to the video. So, to fully

appreciate the significance of what's

happening in Crimea right now, it helps

to just briefly recap Crimea's

geography. Crimea, of course, is a

peninsula jutting off the southern

portion of Ukraine. But I have long said

that for all intents and purposes,

Crimea may as well be an island. Because

as far as road and rail connections to

the outside world, there are only a

couple of road and rail connections in

the north across an incredibly narrow

land connection or a road and rail

connection in the east. And that is it.

That is all that Crimea has, at least as

far as land connections to connect it to

the outside world and to allow resources

to come in or to allow people to go out.

For a long time, people have looked at

this dynamic and they have said it would

be impossible for Ukraine to ever take

Crimea back from Russia, particularly

under combat circumstances because the

nature of the geography means that to do

that, Ukraine would have to send troops

across a very narrow choke point where

they would be eliminated very easily or

they would have to conduct an amphibious

landing which would also be very, very

difficult. Both of these are high

casualty events. casualty events that

Ukraine just frankly probably could not

sustain. And so again, people have said

Ukraine will never take Crimea back from

Russia. But these same people typically

missed the fact that this geographic

reality can work in both directions. And

these narrow choke points that can

prevent supplies or people from coming

in, those don't only prevent Ukrainian

soldiers from coming in if the Russian

military is opposing them, but they also

prevent Russian supplies from coming in

if the Ukrainian military is opposing

those supplies. That's the dynamic we're

looking at today, where Ukraine is

taking advantage of Crimea's geography

to very effectively put the entire

peninsula under siege by attacking the

limited roads that go into the

peninsula. And today, very recently,

they have just effectively cut off the

last of those supply routes. Now, have

they been completely cut off? No, that's

not what I'm claiming. But they have

been pressured to the point that Russia

can no longer confidently and

consistently get supplies onto the

Crimean Peninsula. Which means that if

Ukraine chose to, they could maintain

this pressure to the extent that the

military presence on Crimea is going to

begin decreasing over time. This is a

huge pivot point and we've been talking

about it for quite a while. We're now

potentially here. So, what's changed

recently, especially over just the past

couple of weeks, is that Ukraine has

really been ramping up their mid-range

drone strikes against Russia, where they

are attaching Starlink terminals to

relatively inexpensive drones, flying

them past the electronic warfare wall

that exists around the front lines, and

communicating with Starlink to allow

them to hit Russia's rear, hitting

targets within a range of approximately

100 to 300 km away from the front line.

something that they've always had tools

where they could do it, but they haven't

had the inexpensive tools like

inexpensive drones to be able to do it

at scale on a regular and a consistent

basis. And this change is massive just

in general. What it means is that

essentially all of Russian occupied

Ukraine is now a target and Russian

soldiers who traditionally felt like

they were safe in rear areas are now

essentially all on the front lines. But

even more specifically, it gives Ukraine

access to cut off Russian logistics like

they never have before. And one thing

we're seeing on a very regular basis on

a daily basis now is Ukraine striking

trucks and trains in Russian occupied

Ukraine preventing supplies from getting

just about anywhere. And one area of

particular focus here is Crimea. Because

what this newfound capability means,

what this newfound range means is that

Ukraine now has the capability to

completely cut off the last leg of the

transportation stool that allowed Russia

to consistently get supplies to Crimea.

Because now every truck and every train

going into Crimea can be destroyed not

by an expensive missile, but rather by a

relatively inexpensive Ukrainian drone.

And this gives Ukraine the opportunity

to dramatically change the dynamic on

Crimea at a time of their choosing. And

it seems like they have been preparing

to do exactly that. To really express

the magnitude of the current situation,

we have already seen Ukraine conducting

similar strikes on the supply routes

feeding Russia's front lines. They've

been doing that for well over a year

now, and the result of that has been

obvious. Ukraine has been so effective

that they have effectively stalled

Russia's advances because Russia just

cannot get large enough groups of men or

equipment or material or explosives or

weapons, anything to the front line to

actually coordinate assaults. That is

how effective Ukraine has been across

basically the entire front line. And now

what we're seeing is Ukraine can create

that same dynamic for the entire

peninsula of Crimea. And if that sounds

like a long shot, it would actually be

easier for Ukraine to take the leap and

do that than it has been for Ukraine to

stop supplies from reaching the entire

Russian front because the entire Russian

front is a huge amount of different

supply routes. Crimea again is just a

couple of roads. The main thing that has

stopped this from happening has been

again that electronic warfare wall and

the fact that Ukrainian fiber optic

drones that can get past that warfare

wall that sorry that electronic warfare

wall only have a limited range. Now that

Ukraine has overcome that hurdle, they

can do exactly what they've been doing

for years and have proven that they can

do for years to the entire peninsula of

Crimea by putting that same pressure on

just the couple of roads that go through

Crimea's northern entrance. This is a

big deal. It means that Ukraine can

effectively cut off Crimea from supplies

at a moment of their choosing. And I

have seen a lot of signals that make me

believe Ukraine may be planning to do

just that because this current

development does not exist in a vacuum.

It's actually just the latest in a

series of things that have been

happening on Crimea. The first has been

again Ukraine has been ramping up their

strikes on Crimea's air defenses.

They've taken out something like over a

100red different air defense systems on

Crimea since the start of 2026. And

that's been huge. Ukraine does this from

time to time. They clear out Russian air

defense systems. Russia replaces them.

Ukraine goes and just destroys them

again. But Russia feels like they have

to protect Crimea. So they replace the

air defense systems. This lets Ukraine

grind down Russia over time. Because

Russia is clearly terrified as Ukraine

destroys the Crimean air defense systems

that they're creating gaps that they

could actually exploit to make life hard

for the soldiers or the civilians living

there. And that would of course be a

crisis for Russia. Lately, however, the

situation on Crimea has been a lot more

than just the regular Ukrainian strikes

on Russian air defense systems because

Ukraine has been pursuing some targets

that they have never fully pursued

before. Certainly not all at the same

time. And this happened around the

beginning of April, setting the stage

for what we're seeing today, where at

the beginning of April, Ukraine struck

the largest oil terminal in Crimea,

destroying, I believe it was 23 out of

29 of the storage tanks at the facility.

This was a big deal because this

terminal and these storage tanks were

what made Crimea somewhat durable

against a siege. They allowed Crimea to

buy some time, if the transport routes

were cut off, to still supply oil to the

rest of the peninsula. That was a big

deal. It meant Russia could sustain and

it meant that they did not have to

continue supply routes when the pressure

was immense. But Russia no longer has

that luxury. Crimea is now in a state

where if Ukraine does put sustained

pressure on the supply routes, they're

going to run out of oil. really really

really

fast. So it does seem like some

intentional planning for UK from

Ukraine's part especially when you look

at the other thing that Ukraine recently

did which was again at the beginning of

April to strike the final ferry that is

servicing Crimea from mainland Russia.

So I have to explain this ferry

situation a little bit. On the eastern

side of Crimea there is a bridge the

Kurt Straight Bridge. the only bridge

that connects Crimea to mainland Russia

and a major supply artery for the entire

peninsula. Early in the war, Ukraine

actually struck this bridge. And they

struck it so badly that it compromised

the structural integrity of the bridge

to the point that Russia did not feel

safe sending military equipment across

the bridge, especially heavy military

equipment like air defense systems,

tanks, armored vehicles. They'll still

send civilians across but not military

equipment. In order to continue

supplying the Crimean Peninsula, Russia

then started relying on their fairies.

And they had a had a fleet of three

fairies. And very early on, Ukraine

struck all three of those fairies as

well. One of them was completely

destroyed. Two of them were disabled.

That was in 2024.

Russia has been working to repair these

fairies since 2024. And they recently

came back in commission in March, April

of 2026.

And as soon as they came back in

commission, Ukraine struck the fairies

again. They hit one of them in March and

they hit one of them again at the

beginning of April, the final one. And

it really looked like Ukraine was just

waiting for Russia to finish repairing

the fairies and then to take them

offline. So that, you know, it took them

two years to repair them the last time.

It'll probably take them even longer now

because attrition on Russia, skilled

workers, materials, that's all gotten so

much worse. So, Ukraine has effectively

bought themselves some time where Russia

can no longer use the fairies to supply

Crimea at the same time where they're

now putting pressure on the northern

supply route that comes into Crimea,

which is now putting Russia in a

situation where they are forced to rely

on the Kurt Straight Bridge again. the

bridge that they already decided earlier

on was not a safe bridge for them to

send military equipment across. And in

all of this context, we see that Ukraine

also did something else around the Kurt

Straight Bridge, which was at the end of

April, they targeted some ships that

were responsible for protecting the Kurt

Strait Bridge from sabotage attacks. So

it really looks like in the eastern

portion of Crimea, Ukraine is setting

the stage to stop all supplies into

Crimea from that route. What we're

seeing then right now is a setup of

conditions that could allow for a full

siege of Crimea for the very first time.

And this is something that could allow

Ukraine to take Crimea back without all

of the massive casualties that everybody

was predicting just a year ago. Just

think about it critically for a couple

of seconds. Ukraine has already

demonstrated that they can hit Russian

military equipment on Crimea. They have

taken out the air defense systems there.

I don't even know how many times. It's

been over and over and over again.

They've also taken out the Russian

military headquarters buildings there.

They've taken out factories that are

located there. They've taken out oil

facilities that are located there.

They've taken out military aircraft

located on Crimea. And they've also

taken out the Russian Navy stationed

around Crimea and forced them to flee to

other bases. Ukraine can definitely put

sustained pressure on Crimea. The only

thing preventing that from accumulating

is Russian supplies continuing to come

in to replenish those losses. So if

Crimea is fully cut off, Ukraine could

definitely wear down the peninsula over

time. And then when we combine this

logic with the new developments that

Ukraine has made over the past year when

it comes to ground robotics, things get

really interesting because Ukraine has

demonstrated now that they can use

robots, not humans, to capture Russian

infantry positions without any human

casualties. So this also changes the

nature of a potential invasion of

Crimea. Over time, what Ukraine has to

do is just grind down the defenses. Once

those defenses are sufficiently ground

down, use pressure from traditional

drone teams, traditional ground robotics

to ultimately take those positions back.

It doesn't have to happen overnight.

That's the nature of a siege. It just

has to have consistent pressure,

consistent progress until the victory is

attained. And they could definitely do

it. So, the question I'm definitely

going to get is if this is possible, why

didn't Ukraine do this years ago? And I

think that goes to something that I've

already said in this video, which is the

fact that Russia kept replenishing their

losses. And for Ukraine, that was not

necessarily a bad thing at all. For

Ukraine, Crimea has been this easy, soft

target where they can hit stuff with

abandon and destroy very high value

Russian military targets. Russian

military targets that typically for most

of the war have been out of reach on

Russian territory itself, especially

considering the fact that Ukraine didn't

have western weapons that they could use

to strike Russian territory proper. They

didn't have the permission to do that

for most of the war. Now Ukraine has

their own homegrown weapons and they can

do it. But the point is Crimea has been

a great source of attrition. Not just

wearing down the resources on Crimea

itself, but also wearing down the

resources for Russia as a whole because

every air defense system that has to

replace a broken one on Crimea is one

that you can't station around Moscow or

around a factory in Siberia. You get the

picture. It seems though that there is a

potential shift in Ukrainian logic now.

It seems that they have potentially

decided they have done enough attrition

to the Russian military and they can

start now setting up the next phase of

the strategy which isn't just grinding

down the Russian equipment, but it's

actually making some steps to start

pushing forward. The war has definitely

reached a new stage. Now, we've covered

a lot in today's video, but inevitably

there will be some questions that you

guys, my audience, have about things

that just did not make it into the

outline. while I was filming. So, to add

some additional depth to these videos,

I've decided to start doing a weekly

insider Q&A where I will respond to the

top questions from you guys, my

audience, on the topics from the videos

I posted that week. So, definitely leave

a comment below with your question if

there's something you want me to dive

deeper on. And to get access to that

Q&A, just click the join button below

this video next to my picture on screen.

I will look to post that Q&A on Friday.

And I look forward to these sessions

where we can go a little bit deeper

together. Thanks so much for watching

guys.