After reaching Sunday More than forty Russian combat planes with hidden drones in civil transport trucks, Ukraine attacked the Kerch bridge that unites Crimea with Russia with more than one ton of explosives placed underwater, in another operation prepared by kyiv’s secret services for months.
Although the exact scope of what is the third attack against the Kerch bridge is not known at the moment, this action of the Ukraine Safety Service (SBU), which carried out the operation against airfields, It has a lot of symbolic value and highlights Russian vulnerabilities in the defense of one of the most precious objectives for Ukrainians in this war.
“Crimea is Ukraine, and any expression of the occupation will receive a forceful response,” said the head of the SBU, Vasil Maliuk, by informing about the attack against the bridge, which was also prepared for “several months” and took place during the early morning from Monday to Tuesday.
Built between 2016 and 2019, the bridge that It extends to the Kerch Strait connects Russia with the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea, Annexed by Moscow in 2014 and symbol of the permanence of Russian domain in that territory.
As Maliuk said after celebrating the success of the operation against the Kerch bridge this Tuesday, this infrastructure does not only have a symbolic value: It is also important for the supply to the Russian troops deployed in the occupied territory of Ukraine.
The infrastructure was first damaged at the beginning of the war for Ukrainian secret services With an explosive placed in a regular transport truck that killed five people and caused the detachment of a part of the road when exploding while the vehicle crossed the bridge.
Meticulous plans
The method chosen to perpetrate today’s attack It is similar to the one that allowed kyiv on Monday to destroy more than a third of the cruise missile carriers strategic that Russia had.
To neutralize these airplanes, the SBU hid remote vision drones that cost just a few hundred dollars each Under the roofs of prefabricated wooden houses that, still disassembled, transported the trucks selected for the mission.
When vehicles, whose drivers had no record of the operation, were close to the air bases in question, The drones were activated remotely to hit the objectives.
According to the SBU, the operation caused material damage to the enemy of more than US $ 7 billion.
SBU operations against Russian airfields and against the Kerch bridge have been held by many Ukrainians as demonstrations that his country still has the capacity to hit the enemy and continue resisting military aggression with guarantees.
It remains to be seen if these actions and attacks on the Briansk and Kursk bridges will influence the situation in the front, where Russia continues to take the initiative and prepare to conquer more territory In Sumi and to bring hostilities to Ukraine Central entering for the first time during the war in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The Russian Instruction Committee (CIR) accused, in the meantime, Ukraine of commission Two trains with a balance of seven dead and more than a hundred injured.
Apart, the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed Tuesday that a total of 41 Russian airplanes were destroyed in the drone attack carried out last Sunday against air bases of the rear.
How is a possible covenant?
The Kremlin declared on Tuesday that Do not expect a rapid “advance” in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine, After the cycle of direct negotiations in Türkiye on Monday, which ended without an agreement for a high fire.
“It would be a mistake to expect immediate decisions and advances,” Declared the spokesman of the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, during the daily meeting with the press in which AFP participated.
Although the US president, Donald Trump, said He was willing to head a high level meeting to promote the high on the fire between Russia and Ukraine, The Kremlin ruled out a speedy three -band summit between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the United States leaders, Trump, and Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski.
“If we are sincere, shortly, hardly. President Putin has affirmed on numerous occasions his willingness to hold meetings at the highest level, But, at the same time, he added that these meetings must be the product of agreements achieved “during the negotiations, said Dmitri Peskov, presidential spokesman, at his daily telephone press conference.
Although President Zelenski has also been open to dialogue, Russia requires Ukraine to recognize the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and another four of its regions and the resignation of admission to military blocks such as the Otan, According to the memorandum released today by the Russian press.
The Russian delegation also demanded that kyiv put limits to the number of troops from your armed forces, during the negotiations held on Monday in Istanbul.
Trump has already shown his frustration to the point of pointing to Putin, and Ukraine He has accused Russia of avoiding the dialogue to gain time.
For all these reasons and because attempts at direct conversations among the leaders have failed, analysts believe that The talks for a possible fire high are at a dead point.
*With information from EFE and AFP.