Ukrainian intelligence admits involvement in Crimean bridge attack

2023-05-27 14:08:00

“Since this is a logistics route that we had to cut off from the enemy, appropriate measures were taken,” the head of the domestic intelligence service SBU said in a YouTube interview with Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Komarov. He did not give details of the operation.

The images of the fire on the bridge resulting from the explosion on October 8 – the night after Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday – went around the world.

Western secret services have also assumed that Ukraine was involved. Maljuk had only hinted in December that Ukraine might have something to do with it. Now he confirmed it. Moscow blamed the Ukrainian military intelligence service for the attack. The bridge, which was closed for days but has now been repaired, leading from the Russian mainland to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, is considered an important supply route for the war against Ukraine.

Malyuk said Ukraine acted in accordance with “traditions of warfare”. He also said that at the beginning of the Russian war of aggression more than 15 months ago, the SBU secret service created a special unit for acts of sabotage on Ukrainian territory against the enemy and for repelling such attacks by the enemy.

Maljuk also said about the attack on the Crimean bridge that the Russian authorities were still conducting “pseudo-investigations” about it. More than 20 Russian citizens suspected of involvement in the crime were arrested. Ukraine is following this with interest. The drone attacks in October on warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Sevastopol Bay were also part of a SBU special operation together with the Ukrainian armed forces, he said.