This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.
For the third time since the Russia-Ukraine war started, a large explosion has damaged the bridge connecting Russia’s mainland to Crimea.
Ukraine’s security service (SBU) has quickly claimed responsibility, describing that this time it was an underwater explosive attack, possibly facilitated with an unmanned submarine, which left the structure which goes from the Russian city of Krasnodar in the east to Kerch in Crimea “in disrepair”.
The 12-mile Kerch Strait Bridge that links Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, file image.
A video was soon published of the explosion of what the SBU called the “badly damaged” bridge after support columns were blown up.
“The Security Service of Ukraine carried out a new unique special operation and struck the Crimean Bridge for the third time – this time underwater!” the SBU declared on Telegram.
“Today, at 4:44 a.m., without any civilian casualties, the first explosive device was detonated,” the statement said. “The underwater support pillars were severely damaged at the seabed level, aided by the equivalent of 1,100 kg of TNT. As a result, the bridge is effectively in an emergency condition.”
Russia has confirmed that traffic on the (alternatively called) Crimea Bridge was temporarily suspended as a result of the damage and emergency situation. But the 12-mile bridge, Europe’s longest, was reportedly quickly reopened after hours.
“RIA Novosti, a Russian state news agency, reported that the bridge was briefly closed for several hours on Tuesday,” the NY Times writes. “An app that is widely used in Russia to track traffic on the bridge showed that it was open again as of midafternoon.”
Several attacks on the $3.7 billion, iconic bridge have occurred throughout the war, including an October 2022 truck bombing on the bridge, which killed and wounded civilians. That attack took at least ten months to repair, but there was another attack nearly a year after the first one, which utilized maritime drones hitting support pillars.
This comes two days after Ukraine’s ‘Operation Spider’s Web’, which reportedly took out some forty Russian combat aircraft, among them strategic bombers, in Kiev’s most ambitious and provocative operation to date.
Ukrainian intelligence is really on a roll, but the world awaits a likely devastating ‘shock and awe’ style attack by Moscow, which is apparently exercising patience as it readies the inevitable retaliation. Likely, ‘command HQ’ centers are going to be targeted in the coming days.
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