Camouflage at its finest: Fuel is now being transported to Crimea in tanks that previously held water and milk
8 July 18:30
Attempts by Russian authorities to restore fuel supplies to the powerless Crimea are being met with fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces. They continue to attack fuel tankers, despite efforts to conceal the cargo being transported and jam the Starlink communications used by drones, as well as to blow up tankers attempting to deliver fuel to the peninsula. This is reported by "Komersant Ukrainian", citing Reuters.
Ukrainian drone operators described the tactics the Russian army is using to protect fuel and other cargo.
“We struck water tankers, and they caught fire because there was gasoline inside,” explained Major Mykola Kolesnyk, commander of the 422nd Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment fighting in Zaporizhzhia. “We struck trucks painted to look like milk tankers, which were actually carrying diesel fuel.”
According to Ukrainian commanders, Russian troops are now also organizing small convoys of tanker trucks, which are covered by pickup trucks equipped with machine guns, and are choosing less-traveled roads. In addition, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense told Reuters that small civilian vehicles, ATVs, and motorcycles are being used to transport fuel to the front lines and to Crimea, as well as ammunition and provisions.
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Cargo is hidden in camouflaged dugouts, abandoned houses, and agricultural buildings, while civilian gas stations are used to store fuel for the military.
For several months now, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting a campaign to strike Russian supply routes using medium-range drones operating behind enemy lines at distances of up to 200–300 km. With their help, the “land bridge” to Crimea has been cut off, leading to a massive fuel shortage on the peninsula. Combined with strikes on energy infrastructure, this has resulted in widespread power outages in Crimea.
Currently, gas stations in Crimea are prohibited from selling more than 20 liters to a single customer, and in Sevastopol, gasoline is effectively unavailable for general sale; it is distributed via QR codes obtained through the state-run messaging app Max. The average price of gasoline on the peninsula as a whole and in Sevastopol is about 200 rubles.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operations using medium-range drones can likely be considered the most significant event in this year’s armed conflict, notes Rob Lee, a senior research fellow at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute. But the Russian military is gradually beginning to counter them, he adds.
The Russian military has begun attempting to jam Starlink communications, which Ukrainian operators use to maintain contact with their drones. Russia is deploying the “Khvylia Kupol Garant” electronic warfare system, which emits a signal powerful enough to disrupt Starlink operations over an area of about 20 square kilometers, said Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense. According to him, about ten such systems have already been detected.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are also hunting them down. On June 15, the press service of the 422nd Regiment released a video which, it claims, shows the destruction of a “Starlink signal jamming system.” The footage shows a Ukrainian drone attacking a complex of six large white containers or trailers standing close to one another.
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