M2 highway

The Russian route M2 is a major trunk road that connects Moscow to Crimea. It is part of the European route E105. It is 720 kilometers long.

Inaugurated in 1950, the highway starts at the junction of the Moscow Ring Road and Varshavskoye Shosse and travels south-west, immediately bypassing the cities of Tula, Oryol, Kursk and Belgorod before terminating at the border with Ukraine.

West of the border at Hoptivka, the road continues through Kharkov and Zaporizhia to Simferopol and Yalta as the Ukrainian M20 and M18. Prior to the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation, it was used by Russian summer vacationers who travel to the Black Sea resorts of Crimea; that journey may now be made by the M4 and A290 instead.