Ukraine issues new Crimean Bridge threat

Kiev says work is underway to destroy the strategic Russian link by the end of the year

Kiev is working on plans to destroy Russia’s Crimean Bridge within the next few months or by the end of the year, the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), Kirill Budanov, said during a national telethon on Friday.

The comment was made in reply to a journalist’s question about whether the crucial link between the Crimean Peninsula and mainland Russia can be destroyed in the near future.

Kiev is currently “working hard” on plans – including long-range strikes – to make it happen, he said, adding that “a comprehensive approach” is required.

The journalist explained that by “the near future,” she meant the next few months or by the end of 2024, to which Budanov replied, “I would like that too.” 

“If you look at the near future that way, there are chances,” he said.

Senior officials, including Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, have justified the country’s repeated attempts to destroy the bridge between the Crimean Peninsula and Krasnodar Region, claiming it has significant logistical value for the Russian military. 

The bridge was completed in 2020. Crimea voted in a referendum to break away from Ukraine and join Russia in 2014 following the US-backed coup in Kiev earlier the same year.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Kiev has made a number of attempts to destroy the bridge, including the use of Western-supplied long-range missiles, naval drones packed with explosives, as well as explosives smuggled in vehicles.

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Despite numerous attempts, the bridge has only been damaged twice, with several people killed on both occasions.

In May, ten US-provided ATACMS missiles on a trajectory toward the Crimean Bridge were shot down, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

Moscow has condemned the deliveries of Western weapons to Kiev, warning that they only prolong the conflict while making Western countries party to the conflict. Russian officials have also suggested that Kiev escalated its sabotage and bombing campaigns due to its battlefield failures.

In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that amid frontline setbacks, Kiev is resorting to “attempts to incur and seize border territories, strikes against peaceful areas, including with multiple-launch rocket systems, attacks on energy infrastructure, attempted missile strikes on the Crimean Bridge and the peninsula itself.”