 "Crimea Bridge Collapse: Two killed as vital bridge damages; watch")
The Crimean Bridge suffered damages to its spans on Monday claiming two deaths, Russia’s Transport Ministry reported. “There is damage to the roadway on spans of the Crimean Bridge,” the Russian Transport Ministry said on Telegram The Ukrainian media claim that it was a special operation by the SBU and the Ukrainian Navy, during which surface drones were used. Visuals from the site depict a partial collapse of a section of the roadway portion of the bridge, which also carries railroad tracks. On his Telegram channel, Vladimir Konstantinov, head of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea, blamed the damage to the bridge on a Ukrainian attack.
“Tonight the terrorist regime in Kyiv committed a new crime – it attacked the Crimean bridge,” Konstantinov said. The railroad track was not damaged by the strike,” Konstantinov added. Crimea was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, but is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine. Russia’s Grey Zone channel, affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group, reported that there were two strikes on the bridge at 03:04 a.m. (0004 GMT) and 03:20 a.m.
As with previous alleged attacks in Crimea, the Ukrainian government has been opaque in its messaging. But the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) hinted that the Ukrainian government was responsible for the adversity. The 12-mile (19-km) road and rail bridge was damaged by an explosion last October, in an attack that the Kremlin said had been orchestrated by Ukrainian security forces. Ukraine admitted only indirectly to the attack months later. Both Aksyonov and the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said that they set up operational headquarters in their regions to address the emergency situation on the bridge. The Russian-backed administration of the peninsula said Crimea is provided with all necessary stock, but urged residents not to travel via the bridge. Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Odesa military administration, posted a photo on his Telegram of what seemed a line of the bridge in distance, broken in the middle. It was not immediately clear whether that was related to the attack.