Ukraine says it has destroyed a railway bridge to Crimea, seeking to separate the Russian-held peninsula.
Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces had hit a railway bridge, a power plant and other key infrastructure in Crimea as Kyiv’s military sought to isolate the key Russian-held peninsula in the latest phase of the 4-year-old war.
The drone attacks have added to the misery on the Black Sea peninsula, where Russian authorities have had to halt the sale of fuel to civilians as Ukraine stepped up its latest campaign to disrupt supply lines and the power grid at the height of the summer tourist season.
The peninsula was forcibly and illegally occupied by Moscow in 2014.
Ukraine’s increasing use of long-range strikes has highlighted its ability to inflict devastating damage on Russia and put more pressure on the Kremlin while Moscow’s advances have recently stalled, Western analysts and officials said.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week that his forces “divided Crimea with drones.”
“It seems that in the near future, Crimea will turn into an island. This may lead to unexpected consequences for the Russian people,” Fedorov said on the blogger’s YouTube channel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had been warned that Ukraine intended to disrupt Russia’s energy supply and tourism industry. He did not say who issued the warning.
Ukraine’s drones are “coming in a huge stream” and want to “destroy” Russian society, Putin said.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told Putin on Tuesday that officials are considering suspending diesel fuel shipments to protect the country’s motorists, adding to the ongoing ban on jet fuel and gasoline shipments, according to the Tass news agency. Novak also said planned maintenance at refineries has been postponed.
Ukraine also scored near the Kremlin in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia this month.
Parts of Crimea are powerless
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said drones hit an oil storage facility at the Kerch thermal power plant in eastern Crimea, a western power station, and a natural gas distribution station in Simferopol, the peninsula’s second-largest city.
In addition, the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine said that their units, working with the so-called opposition movement in Crimea, destroyed a railway bridge over the North Crimean Canal near the village of Rozdolne.
The military described the building as an important transport route used to supply Russian troops in southern Ukraine and said drones began hitting the building from Sunday to Monday, destroying part of it. The second strike early Tuesday targeted rail maintenance equipment installed on the bridge and its remaining areas, the Telegram said.
The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified, and Russian officials did not immediately comment.
Parts of Crimea were without power on Tuesday, the region’s energy suppliers said. But it attributed the outage to a “technical malfunction” in the local power grid and said it expected power to be restored within 24 hours.
This diamond-shaped peninsula is important for its marine infrastructure and beaches, as well as its strategic location on the Black Sea. Russia has spent centuries fighting for it.
Russian-appointed officials in Crimea have appeared reluctant to discuss the invasion of the peninsula, but new security measures are raising tensions.
On Tuesday, the Department of Sports canceled all sports events, competitions, and training sessions for children on September 1. It described the measures as “solely intended to ensure the safety of our children, athletes, and anyone involved in sports.”
On Monday, Gov. Sergei Aksyonov said that for security reasons, all summer camps in the region have stopped accepting children and new reservations until September 1.
Success against Russia boosts Ukraine’s morale
On the front line in eastern Ukraine, where Russia’s war has been slow and costly since the February 2022 full-scale attack on Moscow, Ukraine has used sophisticated drone technology to keep the enemy on the ground.
Meanwhile, its medium-range drones have also disrupted Russian supply lines at the front, and its long-range strikes have severely damaged Russian oil facilities that provide a vital source of income for the Kremlin’s war effort.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that its forces have attacked more than 800,000 enemy targets with drones since the beginning of the year and that 95% of the drones used by the military are domestically produced.
The success has boosted confidence in Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying continued foreign aid is locked in to help stop Russia.
Officials showed a new vigor in talking about the war.
Ukraine’s UN ambassador Andrii Melnyk said Monday that Kyiv remains ready for direct talks with Russia to achieve a “just and lasting peace” based on the UN Charter, but warned that Ukraine’s willingness to compromise is not over.
Melnyk said at a meeting of the UN Security Council that the current ceasefire should have a broad consensus and urged Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory.
He also said that the recent strikes in Ukraine had changed the dynamics of the war, adding: “This is the beginning.”
A senior Russian official says Moscow will defend Belarus
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is ready to “guarantee the security” of its neighbor and ally Belarus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday, days after Zelensky demanded that Belarus remove transmission equipment from its territory that Kyiv said had facilitated Russian drone attacks.
The relay stations are used to transmit signals to Russian drones attacking Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy.
Lavrov told Russian news agency Interfax that Kyiv is trying to drag Belarus into the conflict. In fact, Moscow used the territory of Belarus to launch its invasion of Ukraine.
