Ukraine’s mid-range – Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment says it used new mid-range strike drones over the past week to hit key bridges near Armyansk, Henichesk and Chonhar—chokepoints between Crimea and the southern front—while pro-Russian authorities confirmed attacks and wa
For days. the footage kept returning: a drone’s first-person view diving toward a bridge deck. again and again. as fire lit up metal structures below. Ukraine’s 1st Separate Assault Regiment framed the strikes as a direct blow to how Russian forces keep moving in the south—especially the routes that run from Crimea into the front.
In a statement. the regiment said it carried out attacks over the last week on the Armyansk. Henichesk and Chonhar areas. describing those locations as three chokepoints between Crimea and the southern front. The bridges there. it said. sit about 50 to 75 miles from the front lines and have been critical to the Kremlin’s logistics routes to the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
The regiment posted first-person-view drone clips across several social media posts over the last five days. In those videos. uncrewed systems are shown repeatedly flown into the bridge surface from above. and the regiment said some attacks were coordinated with the 475th Assault Regiment and Ukraine’s elite Alpha unit. It added a blunt message about the objective: “The only way of delivery of Russian soldiers. ammunition. and fuel from the temporarily occupied Crimea was attacked.”.
Some of the clips showed at least two bridges burning, with structures described as severely damaged in some areas. Business Insider could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.
In parallel, pro-Russian officials in the region confirmed that strikes occurred. Vladimir Saldo. the Kremlin-appointed governor of Kherson. said on Thursday that the region’s bridges in Armyansk had come under attack from at least 45 drone attacks. “According to preliminary reports, some damage has occurred. Experts are conducting an inspection and assessing the condition of the structures,” Saldo wrote in an update.
Saldo also warned on Tuesday of roughly 20 drone attacks on the bridge servicing Chonhar, saying traffic there was closed. His office later began suggesting alternative traffic routes to avoid areas affected by the strikes. and said civilian passenger buses in the region would be halted due to a fuel shortage.
The push toward mid-range drones is starting to reshape Ukraine’s options for striking Russia’s rear. The report described mid-range systems as a rising star because they can reach Russia’s supply lines farther back from the front and harass logistics routes. In earlier years. Ukraine more often relied on sabotage or artillery systems such as the US-made HIMARS to damage supply bridges.
The difference, as described in the report, is not just distance but cost and reach: these drones fly farther and hit harder than typical grenade-carrying quadcopters, yet they are said to be cheaper to produce than the long-distance drones Ukraine uses to attack Russia’s military-industrial base.
Taken together. the sequence of claims—from Ukraine’s assault regiment. to drone footage. to confirmations and traffic and fuel warnings from pro-Russian authorities—centers the same vulnerability: the bridges that turn Crimea-linked logistics into movement across the southern front. If those crossings keep getting targeted, the bottleneck is no longer only the battlefield. It becomes the route that feeds it.
Ukraine Russia drone attacks mid-range drones strike drones bridges Armyansk Henichesk Chonhar Crimea Zaporizhzhia Kherson Vladimir Saldo 1st Separate Assault Regiment 475th Assault Regiment Alpha unit FirePoint FP-2 Hippo thermobaric HIMARS