Russia Says It Thwarted Another Ukrainian Attack on Crimea Bridge

The Russian navy mentioned Saturday that it had thwarted one other assault on a vital bridge linking the occupied Crimean Peninsula to Russia that Kyiv has vowed to maintain attacking till it’s unusable.

The Russian Ministry of Defense mentioned that three Ukrainian “semi-submersible unmanned boats” concentrating on the Kerch Strait Bridge had been destroyed within the Black Sea in a single day. The first maritime drone was detected shortly earlier than midnight and the opposite two launched about 10 minutes aside simply after 2 a.m. native time, the ministry mentioned in statements.

The claims couldn’t be independently verified, and Ukraine’s navy didn’t explicitly remark Saturday on whether or not its drones had focused the bridge.

But Ukrainian officers have mentioned that they take into account the destruction of the important 12-mile-long bridge a strategic precedence, and Kyiv’s forces have repeatedly focused it.

At the identical time, Ukraine in latest weeks has intensified its frequency of drone assaults in Russia. A wave of exploding drones was launched in six areas of Russia this previous week, damaging 4 navy cargo planes at an airfield, in an obvious signal that Ukraine was more and more able to hanging again deep inside Moscow’s territory.

American officers have mentioned that the drone assaults in Russia are supposed to show to the Ukrainian public that Kyiv can nonetheless strike again, at the same time as its counteroffensive to reclaim Russian-occupied territory strikes at a grinding tempo. Another goal, as high Ukrainian officers have mentioned, is to carry the warfare residence to the folks of Russia.