Ukraine says it struck key Crimean bridge with underwater blast

Kyiv: Ukraine says it has struck a road and rail bridge that links Russia and the Crimean Peninsula with underwater explosives, just days after a spectacular drone attack on airbases deep inside Russia.

The Ukrainian Security Service, known by its acronym SBU, claimed it damaged the foundations of the Kerch Bridge linking Russia and illegally annexed Crimea – a key artery for Russian military supplies in the war.

The SBU said it detonated 1100kg of explosives on the seabed, in an operation that took several months to set up.

It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since Russia’s invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, the SBU said. “The bridge is now effectively in an emergency condition,” the SBU claimed.

“Previously, we hit the Crimean Bridge twice, in 2022 and 2023. So today we continued this tradition underwater.”

The agency said no civilians were killed or injured in the operation. It was not possible to independently confirm those claims.

Traffic across the Kerch Bridge was halted for three hours, official Russian social media channels said. It closed for a second time in the afternoon and reopened again after 2½ hours.

The SBU shared video footage that showed an explosion next to one of the many support pillars of the bridge.

Reuters was able to confirm the location from the structure and bearing elements of the bridge that matched satellite and file imagery of the area, but was unable to independently verify when the video was filmed.

Russian military bloggers said the attack had been unsuccessful and speculated that it had been carried out by a Ukrainian sea drone.

It comes after a Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend damaged or destroyed more than 40 warplanes at airbases deep inside Russia, which Ukrainian officials said was a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal and military prestige.

The Russian Defence Ministry acknowledged that Ukrainian attack set several planes ablaze at two airbases but said the military repelled attempted attacks on three other air bases.

Meanwhile, a Russian rocket attack targeted the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding 25, officials said. Local authorities said the barrage of rockets struck apartment buildings and a medical facility in the centre of the city.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the assault, saying it underscored that Moscow has no intentions of halting the three-year-old war.

The Crimean bridge connecting the Russian mainland with the peninsula across the Kerch Strait.Credit: Reuters

Russia’s state Investigative Committee also accused Ukraine of carrying out “acts of terrorism” by blowing up two railway bridges in Russia over the weekend. Seven people were killed and 113 injured, including children, when two trains crashed in Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk regions as a result of the attacks, the committee said on Telegram.

The attacks come a day after direct peace talks in Istanbul made no progress on ending the fighting. Delegations from the warring sides have agreed to swap dead and wounded troops, but their conditions for ending the war remained far apart.

Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as deputy head of the country’s Security Council chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, indicated there would be no let-up in Russia’s invasion.

“The Istanbul talks are not for striking a compromise peace on someone else’s delusional terms but for ensuring our swift victory and the complete destruction” of Ukraine’s government, he said. In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he declared that “retribution is inevitable”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, responding to suggestions that a face-to-face meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelensky could break the deadlock, says the possibility is “unlikely in the near future”.

The war has killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the roughly 1000-kilometre front line where the fighting grinds on despite US-led efforts to broker a peace deal.

AP, Reuters

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