Ukrainian Bridge Strike Bottles Up Critical Russian Logistics, British Military Says

A missile strike on a Crimean bridge last week has succeeded in bottling up Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine, the British defense ministry said.

The June 22 attack punched a hole through the Chonhar bridge – one of two main highway routes connecting Ukraine’s mainland with occupied Crimea.

The bridge, known as the “Gateway to Crimea,” is “the most direct route from Russia’s Crimean logistics hub at Dzhankoi and the Zaporizhzhia sector, where Russia is currently defending against a major Ukrainian offensive,” the UK’s ministry of defense said in an assessment released Wednesday on Twitter.

The assault had “caused vital Russian logistics convoys to take at least 50% longer to reach the front via alternative routes.” Russian officials built a pontoon bridge within 24 hours of the strike, but it wasn’t enough to accommodate the crush of military traffic.

Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed puppet governor of the occupied portions of the Kherson region said June 22 that the bridge was hit with British-made Storm Shadow missiles.

He called the attack “another completely senseless action carried out by the Kyiv regime on orders from London.”