No Gas, No Summer Camps, Sporadic Power: Ukraine Escalates Crimea Attacks
To pressure Moscow, Ukraine is stepping up an air campaign to isolate the peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. A line for gas in Simferopol, Crimea, this month. Associated Press By Paul Sonne and Oleg Matsnev By Paul Sonne and Oleg Matsnev Paul Sonne reported from Berlin. The New York Times , June 22, 2026 Updated 1:30 p.m. ET original article contains links Summer camps are being canceled and evacuated. Gas is nowhere to be found. People are fleeing. And now the electricity is flickering out. Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is reeling from an air campaign that Kyiv has escalated more than four years into a war that remains largely stalemated on the front lines. The situation has added a new pressure point for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, as advances in Ukrainian drone and missile production enable Kyiv to launch bigger attacks that can more easily overwhelm Russian air defenses farther away from the front. Ukrainian offic...