Ukraine is working to cut off Crimea from more than 70 miles away using its latest drones, and fresh fuel restrictions on the peninsula indicate the effort is yielding results.

Crimea's Russian-installed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, declared on Sunday that the seized peninsula would halt all public fuel sales.

"Fuel will be sold only to government agencies that ensure the functioning and security of the Republic of Crimea," Aksyonov stated.

This move marks the strictest step yet in a series of recent limits on the peninsula, a vital Russian hub for supplying troops in southern Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas.

Crimea has steadily tightened fuel access, limiting sales to 5.2-gallon amounts in late May before stopping new coupons for those limits in early June. During those weeks, hundreds of Ukrainian mid-range drones, a fresh type of fixed-wing uncrewed aircraft built to cover 30 to 300 km, struck highways, bridges, and ports tying Crimea to the mainland.

In Sevastopol, a city of 580,000 home to Russia's main military bases, officials also announced on Sunday an evening curfew for public transport, shops, and food services.

Street lighting would be switched off for two days, noted the city's governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, who explained the measures were "due to recent events on the peninsula and the need to quickly adjust logistics."

Sea ferry services, which the peninsula had depended on after its bridges were hit by drone strikes, have likewise been halted following Ukrainian attacks on the Kerch Strait, the channel between Crimea and Russia's Krasnodar region.

An oil depot along the strait was struck as well, based on local accounts and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who verified the strikes on Sunday.

The attacks have caused deaths, with local officials reporting at least five people killed in the most recent strikes. The Russian defense ministry stated on Sunday that it downed 239 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine's fresh main focus

Ukrainian leaders describe the drone strikes as part of a deliberate plan by Kyiv to surround Crimea.

"We will create conditions that will make it extremely difficult for any military personnel or those working in the defense industry to remain in Crimea, in the temporarily occupied territories, or use the access routes to them," Maj. Robert "Magyar" Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, told Reuters on June 11.

Ukraine's defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, repeated the view on Wednesday.

"In essence, Crimea is being isolated by drones. And in the near future, it looks like Crimea will turn into an island," he told local media.

If Ukraine manages to isolate Crimea, Russia would struggle to maintain supplies and troops moving to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. An alternative supply path, the R-280 highway, runs along the Sea of Azov coast to the north, linking the southern front to Russia's Rostov-on-Don region.

Ukraine has also deployed its mid-range drones to target the highway, striking Russian air defenses and supply trucks.

Brovdi told Reuters that traffic on the highway had dropped by over 70 percent since the drone strikes began.

These drones have proven central to Ukraine's updated approach of hitting Russian logistics behind the lines. Fitted with larger payloads and defenses against electronic warfare, they have disrupted Russia's preferred tactic of overwhelming front lines with material and troop superiority over Ukraine.

"We're actually quite bullish on the prospects for Ukraine having some substantial upper-hand momentum as we go into the summer," George Barros, the director of Innovation and Open Source Tradecraft at the Institute for the Study of War, previously told Business Insider.