We are reaching a point in Ukraine’s domestic production of drones and missiles, where Ukraine will remove Crimea from the Russian equation on some level in terms of preventing Russian ships from docking there, as well as making it difficult to reinforce or supply their ground forces there (when they finally take the Kerch bridge down and pressure the rail system more). They are playing with the Russian economic export structure (oil and gas), but it’s safe to say they can start putting the hurt on anything within Crime.
Hell, they’ve been softening up air defenses in Crimea, and the attacks within Russia proper are forcing Russia to move their air defense assets around (and even out of Ukraine), so what happens when they get F-16s and more missiles into play?
What then? Is it worth all of the sanctions for a massive piece of land that has lost its naval and forward air support value, and only has symbolic value and that Ukraine will continue to chip away at?
And what if Ukraine takes out the Kerch bridge soon, and takes out more landing craft-style ships, does Russia give up on Kharkiv to try and rush down there? If the Kerch bridge went down, that would freak a lot of Russian leaders the fuck out.