President Vladimir Putin threatened to strike at Ukraine in retaliation for explosions that damaged Russia’s flagship bridge to Crimea.
“Russia will, of course, respond,” Putin said late Monday in a televised meeting with officials. “The Defense Ministry is preparing the appropriate proposals.”
Russia’s National Antiterrorism Center said two Ukrainian surface drones attacked the bridge in the early hours of Monday, damaging a section of the roadway. The operation was carried out by “Ukrainian special services,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a statement.
State television showed part of the roadway had buckled after the explosions on the 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge connecting Russia to Crimea across the Kerch Strait, which were the most serious since a massive blast in October.
The explosions caused the suspension of road and rail services. Officials said rail transport resumed later Monday, though roads remained closed as repair operations began on the link.
The blasts took place hours before Russia announced it was terminating a deal permitting Black Sea grain exports from Ukraine that was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.
Ukraine Grain-Export Deal Collapses as Russia Terminates It
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decision was unrelated to the bridge incident. Russia indicated last week that it was likely to withdraw from the agreement.
Two people died and a teenage girl was injured in a car on the bridge at the time of the attack, the Investigative Committee said.
Ukraine didn’t directly claim involvement. Putin called construction of the bridge a “historical mission” for Russia before it opened in 2018, four years after he annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
October’s blast also damaged part of the road bridge and temporarily halted rail traffic that’s used to supply Russian forces in the peninsula and in southern Ukrainian areas facing a counteroffensive from Kyiv’s troops to reclaim the territories. Putin blamed that attack on Kyiv and Russia later unleashed some of the most intense barrages of strikes against Ukraine since the first days of its February 2022 invasion.
With many Russian tourists stranded in Crimea because of damage to the road bridge, Sergey Aksyonov, the peninsula’s Kremlin-installed governor, urged people in a Telegram post Monday to seek alternative routes across Russian-occupied land in southern Ukraine.
The damage was reported after the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it had destroyed seven drones and two underwater vehicles in Crimea, accusing Ukraine of a “terrorist attack.”
