A Russian-backed official said Thursday that Ukraine’s military had struck a bridge connecting the rest of Ukraine to occupied Crimea, a peninsula well behind the front lines and one that is vital to Moscow’s war effort.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-installed leader of Crimea, said there were no casualties from an overnight attack on the Chonhar bridge that connects the peninsula to the Kherson region of southern Ukraine. He said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that bomb technicians were investigating the cause.
The Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, is important to Moscow’s control over occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly become a target of attacks, although Ukraine typically maintains a policy of not explicitly claiming responsibility for strikes there.
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Although Aksyonov did not assign blame for the strike, the Russian-backed governor of occupied Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, directly blamed Ukraine. He accused the “criminal Kyiv regime” of hitting the bridge with Storm Shadow long-range missiles donated by Britain.
“We know how to repair bridges quickly,” Saldo said on Telegram. “Vehicle passage will be restored in the very near future.”
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine’s military.
Videos and photographs verified by The New York Times show damage to both bridges that run across the Chonhar Strait between Crimea and the Kherson region. The main road bridge has a hole in it, and the surface of the smaller bridge that runs alongside it also appears to be damaged.
In April, Ukraine’s military acknowledged an attack on an oil depot in Crimea — part of what it said was preparation for a counteroffensive. Severing the “land bridge,” the Ukrainian territory that Russia occupies between its border and Crimea, is a major objective of that campaign, which began to take shape this month.
The attack Thursday, just days after a strike on a Russian ammunition depot in the Kherson region, appears to be part of a broader Ukrainian strategy aimed at hindering the resupply of Russian units fending off Kyiv’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine.
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An impassable Chonhar bridge could impede the resupply and logistics of Russian forces, but won’t cut them off completely as there are other crossings available and the span could be repaired. Saldo insisted later Thursday that the consequences of the attack would be limited.
Crimea has been a staging ground for Moscow’s invasion, serving as a vital link in the Russian military’s supply chain that supports the tens of thousands of soldiers occupying parts of southern Ukraine. Russia has, in recent months, been trying to strengthen its defenses along the Crimean coast, laying land mines and building obstacles to slow tanks.
In other developments:
-- The United Nations put Russian forces on its annual blacklist of countries that violate children’s rights in conflict for killing boys and girls and attacking schools and hospitals in Ukraine, according to a new report. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report to the Security Council that he is “appalled” by the high number of “grave violations” against children in Ukraine in 2022, “shocked” at the number of attacks on schools and hospitals, “concerned” by the detention of children, and “troubled” that some Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia.
-- Denmark will host a meeting this weekend of national security advisers from Western countries backing Ukraine and countries that have refused to condemn the Russian invasion, officials said Thursday. The United States will send national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Victoria Nuland, under secretary of state, to the meeting in Copenhagen, which will focus on how to achieve a just peace in Ukraine, a Western official said on condition of anonymity because the trip hasn’t been formally announced. India, Brazil, and South Africa, which have refused to condemn the invasion and join Western sanctions on Moscow, have also been invited to the talks, the official said, but couldn’t say which countries would attend.
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Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.