Ukrainian forces have hit the Chonhar Bridge, which connects Ukraine with the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, and have also managed to damage a smaller bridge connecting Henichesk with the northeastern coast of the peninsula, Reuters reports.
Moscow’s annex in Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, wrote on the Telegram that the strike was launched on the Chonhar bridge in northern Crimea. The road surface is damaged, and after the traffic has been diverted, repairs have already started.
Another Moscow insider, the executive director of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said the bridge had been hit by an Anglo-French Storm Shadow missile. The Armed Forces of Ukraine Strategic Communications Directorate informed that the missile damaged the surface of the driving part of the bridge.
The road is part of the Russian army’s route connecting Crimea with other parts of Ukraine it has occupied.
Ukraine hit this bridge also in June. The directorate informed that Henichesk bridge was damaged as well, but did not provide further details. Reuters has so far been unable to obtain independent information on the condition of the bridge or the ammunition used.
After the shelling of Chonhar bridge in the temporarily occupied part of Kherson region. pic.twitter.com/7C8azQz1Wa
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) August 6, 2023
Saldo informed that one civilian was injured in the attack on the Henichesk bridge, and the gas pipeline located next to the bridge was damaged. Henichesk is the administrative center of the partially Russian-controlled Kherson region, and more than 200,000 people are said to have been left without gas supply. The village school is also said to have been damaged.
Ukrainian counterstrikes make it increasingly difficult to leave the peninsula seized by Russia in 2014. Crimea is equally important to Russians both as a military center and as a popular tourist destination.
On the 17th of July, Ukrainian strikes damaged the section of the bridge that connects southern Russia with Crimea over the Kerch Strait. In the early morning of the 5th of August, Ukrainian drone caused extensive damage to a Russian fuel tanker near the Crimean bridge.