Crimea Rocked by Reported Explosions as Key Bridge Closed

Several explosions were heard around the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Sunday following missile attacks by Ukraine, according to the Russian government, as officials temporarily closed a key bridge linking the peninsula to Russia.

Russian air defense systems shot down one target close to the city its Moscow-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said in a post to Telegram on Sunday. There was no damage to the city's infrastructure, he said, attributing the attack to Ukraine.

Russia's Defense Ministry then said Kyiv had fired two guided missiles "over the Black Sea near the western coast of the Crimean Peninsula" at 2 p.m. Moscow time (6 a.m. ET) on Sunday. Russian air defenses intercepted the missiles, Moscow said. Shortly after, Russia said air defenses had shot down another Ukrainian missile over the same area half an hour after the initial strikes.

Razvozhaev told Sevastopol residents to evacuate to their nearest air raid shelter, before adding in a later update that the air raid alert had ended. Local Telegram channels reported several explosions around the port city, which is home to part of Russia's Black Sea naval fleet.

Crimean authorities said that traffic across the Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, was "temporarily blocked," but offered no additional details. The Kerch Bridge is a strategically key link between Russia's Krasnodar region and the Crimean Peninsula, and was unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018.

Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment via email.

Shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Black Sea emerged as a key battleground. Ukraine has vowed to reclaim Crimea, which sits to the south of the mainland, but has been controlled by the Kremlin's forces since its annexation in 2014.

Ukraine frequently targets Russian assets across Crimea, including in Sevastopol, often using Western-supplied cruise missiles and attack drones. Kyiv succeeded in sinking the Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, in April 2022 and took out a Russian submarine in September 2023.

Kyiv's forces have also damaged a number of Moscow's landing ships, such as the Minsk, the Saratov and the Olenegorsky Gornyak.

In late December, Ukraine targeted Russia's Novocherkassk landing ship in the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia.

In the wake of the attack, Britain's defense minister, Grant Shapps, said the Kremlin has lost 20 percent of its Black Sea fleet in the previous four months, adding: "Russia's dominance in the Black Sea is now challenged."

Earlier this week, Atesh, a military movement of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars opposing Russian rule in Crimea, said it had located a sunken Russian patrol ship not far from Sevastopol. The vessel was likely damaged by Ukrainian naval drones, the partisan group said.

"Satellite imagery of the Atesh-provided coordinates confirms that the corvette sank between December 28 and 31, 2023," the U.S. think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said on Thursday.

Updates 01/21/2024 at 7:30 a.m. and 9:25 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.