Ukraine Attack Shuts Kerch Bridge After Plans Leaked

Russian authorities in Crimea closed a vital crossing between the Russian mainland and the peninsula after Moscow accused Kyiv of launching dozens of drones at the territory overnight.

Traffic crossing the Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, was "temporarily blocked" in the early hours of Sunday, according to local Telegram channels.

Russia's Defense Ministry said early on Sunday that Ukraine had targeted Crimea with 38 airborne drones in an overnight attack. Russian air defense systems downed all of the incoming drones, Moscow said. It did not specify where the uncrewed vehicles were shot down, nor whether there was any damage.

Several anonymous Telegram channels had reported explosions close to the eastern Crimean port city of Feodosia early on Sunday. The city is approximately 100 kilometers from the Kerch Bridge.

The Kerch Bridge is a strategically key link between Russia's Krasnodar region and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow has controlled since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the bridge in the more than two years of all-out war, and has used Western-supplied long-range missiles to attack the crucial supply route for Russian troops.

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

The brief closure of the Kerch Bridge and the flurry of reported drone strikes come shortly after a senior Russian state media official published a recording purportedly capturing discussions between German military officials on the provision of military aid to Ukraine, including long-range missiles.

German officials discussed how Ukraine could "strike the Crimea Bridge," Margarita Simonyan, the head of the state-controlled outlet Russia Today, said in a post to Telegram on Friday. The meeting took place on February 19, Simonyan said.

A spokesperson for the German Defense Ministry told Newsweek that Berlin assessed that "a conversation in the air force division has been intercepted."

"We are currently unable to say with certainty whether changes have been made to the recorded or written version circulating on social networks," the spokesperson said in a statement, adding the country's military counterintelligence agency, BAMAD, had "initiated all necessary measures for investigation."

"We cannot say anything about the content of the communications that were apparently intercepted."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to supply Ukraine with Taurus missiles, which Kyiv first requested in May 2023. Pressure to commit the air-launched missiles has grown in recent months, including within Scholz's own party.

Scholz said on Saturday that the apparent leak was a "very serious matter" and that authorities were investigating.

"We demand an explanation from Germany," Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

Update 3/3/24, 8:35 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a response from the German Defense Ministry.