War in Ukraine: what is known about the shelling of the Crimean bridge, which Kyiv claims

A bridge connecting Crimea with Russia’s Krasnodar Territory in southwest Russia was attacked on Sunday night into Monday. Russian officials and the media point out that two explosions were heard at the level of the work site during the night, blaming Ukraine for being responsible for the collapse of part of the roadway. Two people died, traffic on the bridge was stopped.

What are the losses?

“In the area of ​​​​the 145th pillar from the Krasnodar Territory, an emergency occurred,” the governor of the annexed Crimean peninsula, Sergey Aksenov, said early in the morning on Telegram, without initially specifying the nature of the emergency. .

The roadway is “damaged,” the Russian Ministry of Transport reported on Telegram, without confirming the presence of possible damage to the structural supports. “The police and all relevant authorities are working hard,” he added, asking motorists to choose an alternative route.

A coordination center has been set up in the Crimean ministry, and investigators have been dispatched to the scene, according to the Russian state news agency TASS, citing local authorities.

What are the human losses?

“Two civilians, a man and a woman, who were driving in a passenger car across the bridge, died,” the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement, which also said their little girl was injured.

Who is behind the attack?

Ukrainian intelligence and navy forces are behind the attack on the Crimean bridge, a source in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) told AFP on Monday. This is a “special operation by the SBU and the Navy,” the source said, adding that “the bridge was attacked using maritime drones.” In Telegram, the governor of the region hinted that missiles could have been used.

Earlier in the morning, Russian bloggers and media outlets said that two explosions had been heard on the bridge during the night, one at 3:04 a.m. and the other at 3:20 a.m. The Russian-appointed head of the Crimean parliament reportedly said the bridge had been attacked by what he called the Ukrainian “terrorist regime” and that the railway section of the bridge had not been damaged.

Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, serves as a logistical base for Russian troops, in particular to send reinforcements and maintain equipment. Several bridges connecting the peninsula with the occupied south of Ukraine are necessary for Moscow to carry out military operations.

What are the implications for traffic?

With the closure of the bridge to traffic, a traffic jam formed at the entrance to the structure, but its length was reduced to 3 km, the state information agency RIA Novosti reported on Monday morning, passing information to the authorities of the Krasnodar Territory, without specifying. what was the record.

Rail traffic across the bridge has been temporarily suspended, as has ferry traffic “between Crimea and Kuban” (southern Russia), TASS reports.

The bridge is already damaged by the explosion

A bridge across the Kerch Strait, opened in 2018, was damaged in October 2022 by a massive explosion that Russian authorities attributed to a truck mined by Ukrainian security forces. Kyiv denied any involvement in this.

In June, the Chongarsky Bridge, which connects annexed Crimea with the partially occupied region in southern Ukraine, was hit by Ukrainian forces, according to Russian authorities. The head of the administration of the occupied part of the Kherson region later stated that at the moment it was “not suitable for traffic.”