Ukraine targets Crimea bridges – authorities

Ukraine has launched a missile strike on bridges linking the northern part of Russia’s Crimea Peninsula and Kherson Region, the local authorities have said. They claim that the attack did not result in any casualties, but caused minor damage to infrastructure, adding that preliminary data indicates that the strike used UK-supplied long-range missiles.

In a statement on Telegram on Thursday morning, Vladimir Saldo, the acting governor of Kherson Region, said: “The criminal Kiev regime has conducted a barbaric strike on civilian facilities,” namely, several bridges in the area of the Chongar Peninsula, which serves as one of the few land connections between the peninsula and the mainland.

The governor said that preliminary data indicates that the Ukrainian strike involved UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles with a range of more than 250km, which has already been used by Kiev to attack civilian facilities in the Russian city of Lugansk.

“The road surface on the bridges has been damaged. There are no human casualties,” he wrote. Saldo noted that the bridge would be open for vehicles shortly, adding that traffic between the peninsula and Kherson Region is not disrupted as it has been temporarily diverted to another route.

Crimea’s governor, Sergey Aksyonov, confirmed the strike on the Chongar bridge, adding that it did not cause any injuries. He noted that bomb experts are trying to identify the type of the weapon used in the strike, while the emergency services are looking into the damage to the infrastructure.

The incident follows a statement by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, who warned the day before that Ukraine wants to use HIMARS and Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russian territories, including Crimea. He noted that these actions would “result in immediate strikes against the decision-making centers in the territory of Ukraine.”

Last autumn, the Crimean Bridge linking the eastern part of the peninsula with mainland Russia came under a deadly attack, which Moscow said was orchestrated by Kiev’s special services. Russia responded by intensifying its long-range strikes on Ukrainian military and energy infrastructure.