Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Russian-built Kerch strait Bridge connecting Crimea to the mainland last month, saying it had been conducted by remotely controlled sea drones.
Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the agency, told CNN the drone, called “Sea Baby”, was developed internally and that two were packed with 850kg warheads when they exploded and damaged the road and rail bridge on 17 July. Two people were killed in the attack.
“Using these drones we have recently conducted a successful hit of the Crimean Bridge,” Malyuk said, as well as more recent attacks on a Russian warship and an oil tanker, said by Kyiv to be supplying fuel for Russia’s military.
Until now, Kyiv has been coy about taking responsibility for attacks on Russian infrastructure, or in Crimea or in Russia itself, but the intelligence chief was keen to talk up the maritime threat to its enemy.
“We are working on a number of new interesting operations, including in the Black Sea waters. I promise you, it’ll be exciting, especially for our enemies,” said Malyuk in the television interview.
Russia takes particular pride in the Kerch strait Bridge, a 12-mile crossing built after Moscow occupied Crimea in 2014. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was filmed visiting the bridge after its completion, telling workers its completion was a miracle.
But its position as a strategic connection between Crimea and the Russian mainland has made it a repeated target for Ukraine. It was also damaged in an apparent truck bombing last October, an attack that Malyuk also claimed responsibility for, although the intelligence chief declined to provide evidence.
The SBU did release a video showing the pilot’s view moments before one of the Sea Baby drones struck a concrete support pillar of the bridge, and supplied two other CCTV videos showing the immediate impact of the two bombings.
Two explosions were reported as having taken place at around 3am on 17 July, killing, Russian officials said, a couple from Belgorod region who had been taking their 14-year-old daughter to Crimea. She was wounded in the attack, they added.
Video showed that part of the road bridge had sheared off in the attack, halting traffic, although rail services to the occupied peninsula were not disrupted. At the time, Ukraine did not take responsibility for the bombing but did hint to its involvement. “The bridge has gone to sleep again,” the SBU said.
On Wednesday, Russia’s defence ministry also said it had shot down three Ukrainian drones south-west of Moscow. Ukraine launched the attack at 5am using “three unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the Kaluga region”, the ministry said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Mailar also said that Ukraine had liberated the village of Urozhaine, seven miles south of Velyka Novosilka, as part of its counteroffensive on the southern front. Fighting had been taking place in the area for several weeks as Kyiv’s forces advance slowly down a river valley.
A few hours later, a video from Ukraine’s 35th marine brigade appeared, proclaiming the liberation of the village.
Russian drones struck warehouses in the Danube port town of Reni overnight, near the Romanian border, in the south of Ukraine, locations increasingly used to transport grain and other supplies in and out of the country given an uncertain security situation in the Black Sea.
Ukraine also announced that the first merchant ship to use a temporary maritime corridor had departed from Odesa, heading towards the Bosphorus strait. The temporary corridor was created after Russia pulled out of a grain agreement last month, and said that merchant shipping would be considered a military target.
The container ship, Joseph Schulte, is sailing under the Hong Kong flag, with 30,000 tonnes of cargo, including food, Ukrainian officials said.
On Sunday, Russia’s navy fired warning shots and boarded a barge that was heading from Turkey to the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail. The barge was empty and eventually the Russians left and it continued on its journey.
