KYIV (Reuters) – Three Ukrainian media outlets quoted unnamed sources as saying Ukraine’s domestic security agency and navy were behind Monday’s incident on the Crimean Bridge, and that they had used sea-borne drones to attack it.
Ukraine’s government did not comment on the incident and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the navy declined to say whether they were involved, although some Ukrainian officials portrayed the bridge as a legitimate military target.
Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne, online publication Ukrainska Pravda and The New Voice of Ukraine media outlet cited one or more sources saying the navy and the SBU were behind the incident, in which Russia said two people were killed.
All three media outlets quoted at least one source as saying sea-borne drones had been deployed against the bridge.
Suspilne quoted a navy spokesman as saying he had no such information and urging the broadcaster to wait for official announcements. A Ukrainian military spokesperson suggested the attack could have bene a provocation staged by Russia.
In comments to the RBC Ukraine media outlet, an SBU spokesperson quoted the security agency’s chief, Vasyl Malyuk, as having said in previous interviews that it was justified in war to “cut off the enemy’s logistical routes” and that the bridge was used as a Russian military supply route.
The SBU posted a message on the Telegram messaging app showing a picture of an explosion on the bridge last October and recast a Ukrainian folk song to read: “Nightingale, my dear brother, the bridge ‘has gone to sleep’ again.”
Presidential political adviser Mykhailo Podolyak welcomed news of the incident, without saying how it happened.
“Any illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived… regardless of the reasons for the destruction,” he wrote on Twitter.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka and Kyiv newsroom, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
