Ukraine’s deputy defense minister reflected on 500 days of war on Saturday, July 8th by admitting responsibility for last October’s sabotage of the Kerch Strait Bridge, a key supply line connecting Russia and the Crimea Peninsula.
In a Telegram post, Hanna Maliar wrote that the bridge—which opened four years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014—was targeted to “disrupt Russian logistics.” She noted that that day marked 273 days since the “first strike” on the bridge.
CNN reached out to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for a statement about Maliar’s claim but had yet to receive a response at the time of writing.
While celebrated in Ukraine at the time—most notably, and highly conspicuously, by Ukraine’s Post Office releasing a new stamp picturing the destruction of the bridge within mere hours of the attack—up until now Kyiv had never openly claimed responsibility.
Investigative journalists got on the case, which culminated in the New York Times exposé “How Ukraine Blew Up a Key Russian Bridge” detailing how Ukrainian operatives loaded a truck with explosives and blew it up halfway across the bridge, killing four and causing some damage. While one day later, some freight and passenger rail traffic had resumed, it took until May for the rail service to be at full capacity again.
The act of sabotage was also an important symbolic victory for Kyiv, as the bridge was considered a prestige project by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had turned 70 only the day before the attack, which was no doubt timed to coincide with the Russian leader’s birthday.
The fact was eagerly seized upon by Ukraine’s Secretary of National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, who then published a video of the bridge in flames alongside a video of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mister President.”
Maliar’s Sunday post did not go unnoticed by Moscow. In a Telegram post condemning the attack, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova once again called President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government a “terrorist regime,” as she remarked that Ukrainian authorities had “embarked on a plan for their own salvation,” namely the “systematic damaging of the [Russian-controlled] Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.”
Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s accusation, which he shared with Brazil, India, China, the U.S, European, Middle Eastern, and African countries, that Moscow was preparing a terror attack on the plant, Russia hit back, saying Ukraine was planning to stage a so-called ‘false flag’ attack on the plant, Europe’s largest, in order to blame it on Russia and hopefully drag NATO into the conflict.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities reported that on July 9th, the Ukrainian military had launched several missile attacks on Russian territory for which, according to initial reports, it had used shells from NATO countries.
On the Crimean peninsula, one cruise missile had been shot down near the city of Kerch. As a precaution, traffic on the bridge was suspended for a brief amount of time.
The Moscow-appointed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said the interception of the missile by Russian air defenses didn’t result in any damage or casualties.
In the nearby Russian region of Rostov, authorities also reported shooting down a missile.
Governor Vasily Golubev said the missile was Ukrainian, and its debris damaged the roofs of several buildings. No casualties have been reported.
Two other missiles were shot down over the Bryansk Region, which lies 170 km from the border with Ukraine. Although a sawmill and several structures were damaged, no one was hurt.
500 days after the beginning of the war, sporadic attacks on Russian territory and the annexed Crimean peninsula (viewed by Moscow as Russian) have become a more regular occurrence.
