Ukrainian drone attacks have cut military cargo traffic on the R-280 highway by 71% over the past two weeks, a sharp reduction that comes as Russian forces keep relying on the route to move supplies through occupied southern Ukraine. Robert Brovdi said on Tuesday that the drop had reached that level, putting new pressure on one of Moscow’s most important land links to Crimea.
The route is known to Russian forces as the Novorossiya route. It runs from Rostov-on-Don to Melitopol, Mariupol and Crimea along the Sea of Azov coastline, and Ukrainian forces have taken to calling it the highway of death. Civilian traffic has been almost completely closed since late May, but the road remains a crucial supply line for Russian forces in the south because it helps bypass the exposed Kerch Bridge to Crimea.
The scale of the disruption matters because the attacks are not isolated. Ukrainian drone operators say dozens of trucks and tankers have been destroyed as part of an intensified middle strike campaign aimed at Russian targets 20km to 200km behind the frontline. Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment said on Tuesday that it saw all movements and totally controlled the enemy’s repair works, adding that it was ready to make long-range adjustments at any moment. The regiment’s message matched the wider push from Kyiv to keep Russian logistics under strain rather than merely damage a single road.
That pressure has already spilled beyond the highway. Traffic was suspended this week on the Chonhar Bridge after a series of Ukrainian drone strikes, and one immediate effect of the campaign has been fuel shortages in Crimea. US-produced Hornet drones, with a range of about 150km, have reportedly featured heavily in the attacks, while Ukrainian forces also appear to have used a new, locally produced fixed-wing drone about 2 metres long.
Still, the road has not been knocked out. Even after repeated strikes and the reported 71% drop, it remains a main supply line for Russian forces in the south, which is why the campaign’s next phase matters. On 5 May, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said strikes at distances of 20km-plus had quadrupled since February, and three weeks later Mykhailo Fedorov described the goal as a logistics lockdown. The open question now is whether Ukraine can keep that level of pressure on the R-280 long enough to force a deeper Russian reroute, or whether Moscow can restore the flow before the corridor becomes even more costly to defend.
