Crimea Bridge Destruction Plan Teased by Kyiv in Report

Ukraine has reportedly said that it is plotting to blow up the Crimean Bridge and that the destruction of the symbol of Russian occupation was "inevitable."

The 12-mile Kerch Bridge that links Crimea with Russia has been targeted in two major attacks linked to Kyiv before.

A drone attack last July damaged the road section parallel to the railway section used by Russia's military equipment to transport supplies. In October 2022, an explosion caused several spans of roadway to fall into the water. Russia said the blast was caused by a bomb smuggled onto a truck.

But Ukraine's GUR military intelligence service has indicated it is plotting a third attempt, according to The Guardian. One unnamed Ukrainian official told the British newspaper, "We will do it in the first half of 2024," and that Kyiv already had "most of the means to carry out this goal."

Newsweek reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian Defense ministries for comment.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence service (GUR), has previously promised new strikes on Russian positions in Crimea and the Kerch bridge, teasing a "serious operation" that will soon be launched on the peninsula.

Permanently compromising the bridge may force Russian forces to supply troops by road through partially occupied southern Ukraine, via Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. This could impair Russian offensives which have gained momentum since the capture of Avdiivka in the Donetsk oblast.

The Guardian said that targeting the bridge is part of a plan approved by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to "minimize" Russia's naval presence in the Black Sea, where Ukraine has sunk landing boats and large ships in recent months.

These strikes on the Black Sea Fleet have pushed much of the Russian Navy from the port city of Sevastopol further east to Novorossiysk.

Western weapons would allow Ukraine to destroy the bridge more easily, the outlet reported. Within this context, Zelensky has repeatedly asked Germany for its long-range Taurus KEPD-350 missile, one of the most modern weapon systems of the German military.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week reiterated his refusal in an interview with the newspaper Märkische Allgemeine, in which he said he wants "to prevent an escalation of the war...between Russia and NATO."

However, Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) told Newsweek last week that Scholz's decision was ensuring a longer war and that Taurus was similar to what the United Kingdom and France had delivered.

"The notion that Scholz would avoid a NATO-Russian war by not delivering a sort of equipment—be it tanks or Taurus—is utterly ridiculous. Actually, the opposite is true," Gressel said.

Update 04/03/24, 7:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.