Video of Moment Missile Hit Crimean Bridge Viewed More Than 500K Times

A video that purportedly shows the moment a missile struck a key bridge linking Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson region with annexed Crimea on Thursday has gone viral.

Twitter user Dmitri, from War Translated, an independent project that translates materials about the war, shared the 22-second video on Thursday, writing: "Video of what looks like the Storm Shadow bridge attack from this morning. Can't see any cars flipping over, though." Newsweek has not independently verified the video.

The footage, viewed more than 500,000 times since its publication, circulated after Russian-installed officials said Kyiv's forces had attacked bridges on the administrative border between the southern Kherson region and Crimea. The region, annexed by Russia in 2014, has several bridges that connect it to Kherson via the Chonhar peninsula.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Kremlin-installed leader of Crimea, said a missile struck the Chonhar bridge, known as "the gate to Crimea", that connects the Black Sea peninsula to the Kherson region. Analysts say the damage caused will complicate Russian supply lines in south Ukraine.

The video appears to show the moment a missile strikes the bridge, causing a huge plume of black smoke to rise into the air.

Vladimir Saldo was appointed by the Kremlin to lead Ukraine's southern Kherson region after it was seized following Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion. Saldo published videos on Thursday that showed a large hole in the road surface of a bridge.

"The criminal Kyiv regime committed a barbarous shelling of civilian facilities—bridges on the administrative border between the Kherson region and Crimea near Chonhar," Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel, sharing images of the strikes.

Saldo added that authorities believe British Storm Shadow missiles were used in the strikes. "The road surface on the bridges was damaged. There are no casualties," he said.

Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of the Crimean State Council, told the state-run Rossiya-24 TV channel that the Chonhar bridge will be restored quickly, and that it wasn't seriously damaged.

"We have information on one incoming strike... This means that the destruction is most likely insignificant and it will be possible to restore [the bridge] quickly. But the final decision will be made today when they make an assessment. The commission is working there, as well as bomb-disposal specialists and so on," Konstantinov said.

Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intelligence agency GUR, said of the strike on Ukrainian public television: "The work is ongoing and will continue... the work of the security and defense forces, resistance movement, the local population, who are waiting for the return of the Ukrainian legitimate authorities to these territories." He did not claim responsibility for the missile strike.

Newsweek has contacted the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment via email.

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