Ukraine’s drone bridge strikes against the three land corridors connecting Crimea to the southern front have intensified over the past week, with the 1st Separate Assault Regiment using a combination of mid-range systems to damage road crossings at Armyansk, Henichesk, and Chonhar, the principal chokepoints through which Russia moves soldiers, ammunition, and fuel toward the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
Coordinated Strikes on Three Crimean Chokepoints
The 1st Separate Assault Regiment published first-person-view drone footage across several social media posts over the last five days, showing uncrewed systems flown repeatedly into bridge surfaces from above. Some of the operations were coordinated with the 475th Assault Regiment and the Security Service of Ukraine’s elite Alpha unit, according to the regiment.
‘The only way of delivery of Russian soldiers, ammunition, and fuel from the temporarily occupied Crimea was attacked,’ the brigade wrote. The bridges lie between 50 and 75 miles from the front lines and have served as critical nodes in Russia’s logistics routes to two occupied regions.
Pro-Russian authorities confirmed the damage. Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-appointed governor of Kherson, said on Thursday that bridges in Armyansk had come under attack from at least 45 drone strikes. ‘According to preliminary reports, some damage has occurred. Experts are conducting an inspection and assessing the condition of the structures,’ Saldo wrote. On Tuesday, Saldo also warned of roughly 20 drone attacks on the bridge at Chonhar, saying traffic there was closed. His office subsequently began suggesting alternative routes and said civilian passenger buses in the region would be halted due to a fuel shortage.
The Munitions: FirePoint FP-2, Hippo, and a Combat Debut for the Behemoth
The regiment said it deployed two mid-range drone types in the campaign. The FirePoint FP-2 carries an 18-foot wingspan and a 220-pound explosive payload. The Hippo has a 7.5-foot wingspan and combines a 77-pound thermobaric payload with 88 pounds of conventional explosives.
According to UNITED24 Media, the FP-2 has been upgraded to carry a 200-kilogram warhead at a range of up to 370 kilometres, a development that considerably expands its reach beyond the Crimea corridors into Russia’s deeper rear areas. The version described in the regiment’s posts, carrying a 220-pound (roughly 100-kilogram) payload, appears to represent an earlier or parallel configuration, underscoring how rapidly Ukrainian drone developers have been iterating on the platform.
The Chonhar crossing saw a further development on the night of 7 June: according to Militarnyi, the bridge was struck by both FP-2 and Behemoth loitering munitions. Militarnyi reports that the Behemoth was first unveiled in late May and that the Chonhar strike constituted its first known combat use. Details of the Behemoth’s specifications have not been confirmed in publicly available sources, but its deployment alongside the FP-2 indicates Ukraine is layering different warhead types against the same target to complicate any repair assessment.
Several clips in the regiment’s posts showed at least two bridges burning, with structural damage visible across sections of the crossings. Business Insider, which first reported the footage, noted it could not independently verify the authenticity of the material.
Mid-Range Drones as a Rising Logistics-Interdiction Tool
The strikes fit a broader shift in how Ukraine approaches rear-area interdiction. In previous periods, Ukraine relied heavily on sabotage operations or artillery systems such as the US-made HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system to threaten Russia’s supply bridges. Mid-range drones offer a different trade-off: they fly further and carry heavier payloads than the quadcopter systems typically used for front-line engagements, while costing considerably less to produce than the long-range drones Ukraine deploys against military-industrial targets deep inside Russian territory.
Repeated impact from above (the tactic visible in the regiment’s footage) concentrates damage on the road surface and underlying deck structure rather than the piers or abutments, a method that can degrade trafficability quickly even if it does not immediately collapse a span. Saldo’s instruction to find alternative routes, and the reported suspension of civilian bus services due to a fuel shortage, suggest the cumulative effect on throughput is already being felt at the regional level. The Behemoth’s combat debut at Chonhar on 7 June, reported by Militarnyi, signals that Ukraine’s drone developers are moving quickly from unveiling new systems to fielding them against high-value infrastructure targets.