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Ukraine has targeted a bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean peninsula in the latest long-range attacks against Moscow.
Ukraine’s security services, the SBU, said on Tuesday that it had hit the Kerch road and rail bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula with explosives below the water level.
In a statement, the SBU said it had used 1,100kg of explosives that were detonated early in the morning and damaged underwater pillars of the bridge, which has been a key supply route for Russian forces in Ukraine.
The official Russian outlet that provides regular status updates on the bridge said its operation had been suspended for about three hours between 4am and 7am local time.
It gave no reason for the temporary closure, but said the bridge had reopened and was functioning as normal.
“Previously, we hit the Crimean Bridge twice, in 2022 and 2023. So today we continued this tradition underwater,” the SBU said in its statement, adding that the operation had been prepared over several months.
Watch moment Russia’s Crimean bridge blown up in huge explosion by Ukraine forces (Security Service of Ukraine)
The SBU shared video footage that showed an explosion next to one of the many support pillars of the bridge.
The bridge, built after Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, was a flagship project for the Russian president. He led a convoy of orange trucks across it during its opening in 2018.
He drove across the bridge again in December 2022 after it was attacked by a Ukrainian drone in October.
Ukraine has stepped up its assaults on Russia and in occupied regions as Kyiv claims that Moscow is continuing to stall peace negotiations. The second round of talks in Turkey barely lasted an hour on Monday and, yet again, failed to make significant strides towards securing a lasting peace.
Over the weekend, Ukraine targeted at least four airbases across Russia using 117 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from containers close to the targets. They destroyed several strategic bombers.
The SBU claimed responsibility for the operation, codename “Spider’s Web”, and said that in total 41 Russian warplanes were hit.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack, which struck targets up to 2,670 miles from the frontlines of the war, “absolutely brilliant”.
Andriy Kovalenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, said that 13 planes were destroyed of 41 struck.
Ukraine drones and shelling, meanwhile, targeted the Russian-held parts of southeastern Zaporizhzhia region and the Kherson region on Tuesday, damaging electricity substations and leaving at least 700,000 people without power, Russia-installed officials said.
Ukrainian officials were quick to praise the latest SBU attacks. Ruslan Stefanchuk, chair of Ukraine’s parliament, said, “Every empire has its pillar. Then – a crack. And another. And then – the empire falls. Such is the fate that awaits the entire Kremlin regime.”