Ukrainian forces fired three missiles at the bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia, forcing Russian authorities to cover the structure in white smoke to deter further attacks and prompting a furious threat of retaliation.
In the latest example of Kyiv taking the war to Russia, multiple guided S-200 rockets were fired at Kerch Bridge but they were seemingly shot down by local air defences.
A further 20 Ukrainian unmanned drones attacked targets in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory illegally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, but Russian officials said they had also been successfully neutralised.
Russia’s foreign ministry condemned what they described as a terrorist attack and warned that it would not go unanswered.
White smoke was seen billowing from the bridge on Saturday morning but Russian air defence forces said they downed the Ukrainian missiles. The cloud of smoke was said to have been deployed in an attempt to deter a further attack.
“Air defence forces shot down two enemy missiles over the Kerch Strait. The [bridge] was not damaged,” said Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean peninsula, as he urged those living in Crimea to remain calm.
He later said that a third had been downed over the Kerch Strait.
Interfax news agency reported that the bridge had been briefly shut to traffic but that it had later reopened.
Of the 20 unmanned drones launched at targets in Crimea, 14 were downed by air defence systems and six more through electronic warfare, the Russian defence ministry said.
Kerch Bridge, which is the only direct link between the transport network of Russia and the Crimean peninsula, was a flagship project for Vladimir Putin, who opened it for road traffic to great fanfare by driving a truck across in 2018.
It was badly damaged last October in a blast that Russian officials said was caused by a truck that blew up while crossing it. Three people were killed. Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency later claimed responsibility for the sabotage operation.
Also on Saturday, a Russian warplane crashed in the Kaliningrad region, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea located between Lithuania and Poland, during a training mission, killing the two pilots on board.
“The Su-30 aircraft crashed in a deserted area,” the local military authorities said. “The flight was carried out without ammunition. The crew died.”
According to officials, a technical malfunction was the likely cause.
In south Ukraine, several beaches in the Black Sea city of Odesa were officially opened for swimming for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion.
Until now the local authorities had banned swimming due to the risk of mines in the sea washing up near bathers. Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port and naval base, has been repeatedly attacked with missiles and drones and the sea was littered with hundreds of sea mines as a result of the invasion in February last year.
The governor of Odesa, Oleh Kiper, said on the social media platform Telegram that the decision to open the beaches had been made jointly by the city’s civilian and military administrations.
He said the beaches would be open from 8am to 8pm but would close when air raid sirens were sounded. Nets have been set up to catch sea mines that might otherwise end up close to shore.
