Explosions on Crimean Bridge Disrupt Crucial Connection to Russia
A still from a video released by a Crimean news station showing a damaged section of the Kerch Strait Bridge on Monday.
A predawn assault on a critical bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia forced the temporary closure on Monday of the main artery used by the Russian military to support its troops in southern Ukraine.
Russian officials blamed Ukraine for the attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge. Two people were killed in the attack, they said, and a third was injured. The officials also said that rail service had resumed on the bridge a few hours after the incident but that the extent and cause of the damage remained unclear.
Ukrainian officials offered no comment on the incident. But they have said that the structure, a pair of road and railway bridges, is a legitimate target because of its vital logistical role in the Kremlin’s war effort.
Video and photographs verified by The Times showed damage to both sides of the road bridge, with the most significant being along a span of the bridge heading into Russia. One photo also showed a damaged car on the bridge.
Andrii Yusov, the spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said Ukraine would not comment on any strikes, maintaining its policy of strategic ambiguity on strikes on Russian targets deep behind enemy lines.
Mr. Yusov, in a statement to Ukrainian media, noted that damage to the bridge would invariably cause logistical problems for the Kremlin’s war effort. He added, “Of course, any logistical problems are additional complications for the occupiers, creating potential advantages for the Ukrainian defense forces.”
A Russian-appointed official in southern Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, reported two strikes on the bridge — one at 3:04 a.m. and the other at 3:20 a.m.
“There was a collapse of one span,” he wrote on Telegram, and a second span was damaged.
The assault came a little more than nine months after an Oct. 8 attack on the bridge by an explosives-laden truck forced the closure of one lane of traffic and damaged the railroad tracks. Three people died in that attack.
The 12-mile bridge, completed in 2018 and considered an engineering feat, was fully reopened to vehicular traffic in February. Normal railroad traffic resumed in May.
On Monday morning, Ukraine’s security service published on social media a version of the same poem it posted after the October attack, noting that the bridge “went to sleep” for a second time.
Vladimir Konstantinov, the head of Crimea’s Kremlin-installed Parliament, blamed Kyiv for the strikes on Monday and said that the damage would soon be repaired.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-backed leader of Crimea, said early Monday that all road and rail traffic had been stopped on the bridge.
The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation said the entire structure was being inspected, but that train service over the bridge — which is critical for the war effort — had been restored early Monday.
The bridge is a major route used to supply Russian troops in Ukraine, as well as the Black Sea fleet, headquartered in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Russian officials said Ukraine used two maritime drones in Monday’s attack, which broke through intensified defenses around the bridge. Given the military and symbolic importance of the bridge, the assault was yet another blow to a Russian military command already dealing with internal strife after last month’s failed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group.
If Ukraine manages to destroy or significantly damage the bridge, Moscow would be left with a single major land route from Russia along the southern coast of Ukraine to support tens of thousands of soldiers fighting to hold onto territory captured in the first weeks of the invasion. However, the Russian claim that trains had resumed running on the bridge suggested the damage this time was limited. The attack came as Ukrainian forces were engaged in an ambitious and grinding counteroffensive aimed at driving Russian forces from southern Ukraine.
Russian forces are dug in behind fields laden with land mines, so the Ukrainian military has been forced to move cautiously and its progress has been slow. At the same time, as soldiers are fighting trench by bloody trench, the Ukrainian military has continued to engage in a systemic effort to damage or destroy Russian logistical operations.
The traffic closure came during the height of the summer travel season, when Crimea is a popular destination for Russian travelers looking for a bargain beach destination. Crimean officials asked tourists to stay in their hotels due to the situation.
The fatalities in Monday’s attack were a father and mother from the nearby Belgorod region of Russia, and their daughter was injured, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, said in a Telegram post.
Mr. Aksyonov, the Crimean official, asked both residents and visitors to avoid using the bridge and to use the “alternative overland route through the new regions,” meaning the areas of southern Ukraine occupied by Russia during its invasion. Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
He and other officials urged people in Crimea not to panic, with some officials saying that there was enough food and fuel stored on the peninsula to supply the civilian population while the bridge was closed.
Milana Mazaeva and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.
Source: The New York Times
