The Russian governor of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, reported on Monday an “emergency” at the Kerch bridge, which connects the peninsula with Russia and is a key supply line for Russian troops in Ukraine. due to several explosions that left at least two dead and one child injured and damage to the road. The infrastructure has had to be closed to road and rail traffic. Ukraine, for its part, confirms that the bridge was attacked by its marine drones, according to the Ukrainian public news agency, Ukrinform.
The Ukrainian media cites unidentified sources in the Ukrainian Secret Service (SBU) and in the Ukrainian Navy, the two components of the Ukrainian security forces that would have organized the attack. “It was difficult to get to the bridge, but in the end we did it,” an SBU representative was quoted as saying by Ukrinform, noting that the bridge is a legitimate target for Ukraine as it was built on occupied Ukrainian territory. According to these sources, the attack would have been perpetrated last night by marine drones, that is, unmanned boats that move on the surface of the water and that would have damaged the bridge.
Russia’s Gray Zone channel, a very popular Telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group, reported that there were two attacks at 03:04 and 03:20 on Monday.
“Traffic was suspended on the Crimean bridge: an emergency occurred in the area of ??support (pillar) 145 of the Krasnodar Territory,” Governor Sergei Axionov said on his Telegram channel. The Russian Ministry of Transport acknowledged that there is “damage to the roadway on the Crimean sections of the bridge”, but that the pillars are intact, according to the TASS agency.
The parents of a girl were killed and their daughter was injured in a car driving over the bridge in the early hours of the morning, said the governor of the Belgorod region in southern Russia, Vyacheslav Gladkov.
The 19-kilometre-long railway and road bridge was illegally built by Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Russia uses Crimea and the military fleet it has deployed there to launch many of its attacks against the rest of Ukraine.
A spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), Andri Yusov, said today about the explosion that the damaged infrastructure “is an unnecessary construction”, quoting the words of the head of the GUR, Kirilo Budanov, on Ukrainian public television. Yusov referred to “the multi-kilometer traffic jams” that occurred early Monday at the entrances to the bridge linking Crimea and the territory of the Russian Federation. “It is clear that any logistical problem means additional problems for the occupiers,” said Yusov about the effects that the attack that has caused cuts may have.
The Crimean peninsula has been a prized and important holiday destination for Russians, especially after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and travel to the West became more difficult for many Russians. In recent weeks, traffic jams at the bridge entrance have stretched for miles every day as Russians went on vacation. On Monday morning, the traffic jam stretched for miles before police directed vehicles away from the infrastructure.
Washington-based Institute for the Study of War analyst George Barros noted on Twitter that if the bridge is seriously damaged, it will significantly affect Russian supply lines. “Russia will only have one land supply line, the Azov Sea coastal road, to sustain (or evacuate) its tens of thousands of troops in occupied Kherson and Crimea if UKR (Ukraine) succeeds in downgrading/destroying the bridge” Barros pointed out.
The Kerch bridge was first attacked with explosives in October last year, in an action that sparked euphoria in Ukraine and threats of a new military escalation by Russia.
Putin ally Arkady Rotenberg’s company built the large structure, which is the longest bridge in Europe. Putin has long praised the project, bragging at one point that Russian czars and Soviet leaders dreamed of building it but never did.
The incident on the bridge coincides with the expiration this Monday of the agreement that the United Nations and Turkey mediated so that Russia would allow the safe export of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea and thus avoid a world food crisis, since dozens of countries depend on it. Ukrainian cereals.
