Putin’s Fury after the New Terrorist Ukrainian Attack on Crimean Bridge with alleged UK Naval Drones REMUS
by Gospa News Editorial Staff
UPDATE ON JULY, 18, 3 AM CET
Explosions reported in many Ukrainian cities
Few hours after Putin vowed retaliation on Crimean Bridge attacks, many explosions have rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov, Ukraine’s Dom TV channel reported on Tuesday.
“Air raid sirens earlier went off in the Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Nikolayev, Odessa, Poltava and Cherkasy regions. Explosions have also been reported in the cities of Nikolayev and Odessa” reported TASS Russian News Agency.
Odessa Ukrainian Centers that prepared Naval Drone Terrorist Attacks on Crimean Bridge Destroyed
UPDATE ON JULY 17, 9 PM CET
Putin vows Retaliation for new Crimean Bridge strike
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed retaliation for a new strike on the Crimean Bridge, targeted by two Ukrainian naval drones overnight. Exact retaliatory measures are currently being weighed by the country’s Defense Ministry, he said during an extraordinary meeting with senior officials on Monday.
“The incident is a yet another terrorist attack by the Kiev regime. This crime is pointless from the military point of view, since the Crimean Bridge has long not been used for military transport, and brutal, since only innocent civilians were killed and injured,” the president stressed.
Putin said Moscow would retaliate harshly for the attackPutin said Moscow would retaliate harshly for the attack, as happened for the first one on October 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry is already preparing “necessary proposals” for such measures, he added.
The president also urged officials to ramp up security measures around the bridge, noting that this marks the second such blow against it. Both the road and railway sections were heavily damaged last October, when a truck packed with explosives was detonated on the bridge.
UPDATE ON JULY, 17, 2 PM CET
Moscow accused Kiev but also American and British Special Services
The deadly blasts that damaged the infrastructure were caused by two Ukrainian naval drones.
Russia’s National Antiterrorist Committee (NAK) said the Crimean Bridge had been targeted by a Ukrainian “terrorist attack.”It stated the attack had involved two Ukrainian unmanned maritime surface drones and had taken place at around 3am local time.
Several Ukrainian media outlets also reported that the bridge had been attacked by sea drones, describing the raid as a “special operation” conducted by the country’s security services and naval forces.
According to some Ukrainian media, the attack on the Kerch Strait bridge was carried out using the British REMUS 600 autonomous robot submarine with an additional load of explosives.
Due to its ability to move underwater to a depth of 600 meters and easy control from a laptop, it was launched from a civilian ship in the Black Sea, has a flight duration of about 70 hours at speeds up to 5 knots. With increased cargo capacity, it has a range of 286 nautical miles, nearly 500km.
«Explosions and an “extraordinary event” have occurred on the Kerch Bridge and at the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s naval base in Sevastopol, including the possible use of Ukraine’s unique naval drones» Kiev Post wrote.
While Ukrainian officials have stopped short of claiming responsibility, they welcomed the incident. Writing on Twitter, Mikhail Podoliak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said that “any illegal structures” used by Russia to supply its troops are “necessarily short-lived… regardless of the reasons for the destruction.”
Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), claimed the Crimean Bridge is a “redundant construction.”
Ukrainian officials cheering the deadly terrorist attack against the Crimean bridge demonstrate “cynical and monstrous” behavior, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. The Monday morning blasts killed two Russian civilians traveling via the strategic transport link and left their 14-year-old daughter an orphan.
“They said in Kiev that the incident was the result of a joint operation of its Navy and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). It confirms that the nation’s political leadership and special services are linked to this terrorist act,” the ministry said.
“This regime [the Ukrainian government] is terrorist and has all the hallmarks of an international organized crime group,” the Russia Foreign Affairs ministry said on social media, sharing a post by its spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.
“Ukrainian officials and military personnel take those decisions with direct input from American and British special services and politicians. The US and Britain are managing a state-like terrorist structure,” the statement added.
These are the same suspicions also advanced by the Western media after the serious explosion on the bridge in the last October for which Kiev politicians recently claimed responsibility in the terrorist attack.
Girl orphaned after Ukrainian terrorist attack on Crimean Bridge
A couple killed by a Ukrainian drone attack on the Crimean Bridge were residents of Belgorod Region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has confirmed. Their orphaned 14-year-old daughter, who survived the incident, is in hospital, reportedly in stable condition.
A car from Belgorod Region was caught in the explosions.
The governor confirmed that the victims were residents of the Novy Oskol district, which includes the eponymous city and nearby settlements. The media identified the deceased as Aleksey Kulik, 40, and his wife Natalya, 36. The man worked as a truck driver, and the woman was an educator.
Their daughter, Angelina, was rushed to intensive care in the city of Temryuk, east of the Crimean Bridge. Hours later, a helicopter took her to a hospital Krasnodar.
Natalya’s sister, Alyona, told the news outlet SHOT that their families were traveling to Crimea together in two vehicles. Her car crossed the bridge first, and then she heard two explosions from behind.
ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON JULY, 17,, 5 AM CET
Mysterious Incident on Crimean Bridge: Traffic Stopped
“Traffic on the Crimean bridge has been stopped due to an emergency in the area of the 145th support of the bridge, the head of the Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said on his telegram channel. He did not specify the nature of the incident” reported TASS Russian News Agency.
“Traffic has been stopped on the Crimea Bridge: an emergency occurred in the area of the 145th support from the Krasnodar region. Law enforcement agencies and all responsible services are working. I spoke with the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Vitaly Gennadyevich Savelyev, measures are being taken to restore the situation. We keep in touch with colleagues from Krasnodar region,” Aksyonov wrote.
He added that Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea Igor Mikhailichenko had left for the scene. Aksyonov asked the residents of the republic to remain calm and trust only verified sources of information.
According to Russia Today, Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov later said in a video address an underage girl was injured, while both her parents were killed, and their car was destroyed. this is implicit confirmation of the suspected explosion.
Some witnesses, quoted by the media, refer to an explosion that took place on the road, not coming from an air attack.
The Russia’s Transport Ministry Statement
Russia’s Transport Ministry did not confirm the information about the damage to the bearing of the Crimean Bridge, there is damage to the roadway on the spans of the structure from the side of the Republic of Crimea. The press service of the ministry stated this on Monday.
“Russia’s Transport Ministry reported that from the side of the Crimean River there is damage to the roadway on the spans of the Crimean Bridge. The structures of the spans themselves are on their supports. <…>The ministry did not confirm the earlier media reports about damage to the supports of the bridge,” the statement says.
Aksyonov has called on urged residents of the region and tourists to use an alternative land route through new regions of Russia instead of the bridge, which runs across the Kerch Strait.
“Given the current situation, I ask residents and guests of the peninsula to refrain from traveling through the Crimean bridge and, for security reasons, choose an alternative land route through new regions,” the statement says.
“Videos posted to social media show a traffic jam on the bridge, with motorists being forced to turn their vehicles around and drive to there they came from” reported Russia Today.
An alleged Explosion on the Bridge
Unverified reports on Telegram claimed that there was “an explosion” on the bridge. Channel Baza reported that two people were killed and one injured. Other channels cited witnesses as saying that they heard loud bangs.
“According to the Ministry of Health of the Krasnodar region, a minor child was injured during the emergency on the Crimean Bridge. The preliminary diagnosis is a closed craniocerebral injury, a state of moderate severity,” according to the telegram channel of the operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region.
The Russian channel Gray Zone, a Telegram channel very popular and close to the Wagner mercenary group, writes that there were two attacks on the Crimean bridge around midnight (Italian time) and at twenty past midnight.
The railway part of the Crimean bridge does not appear to be damaged. Trains from Crimea to Russia’s Krasnodar Territory appear to be running as expected, writes Tass.
Last week, Viktor Afzalov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Air Force, said that air defenses foiled a Ukrainian attempt to strike the Crimean Bridge with a missile.
The 19-km long bridge linking Crimea to Krasnodar was hit by a massive explosion on October.2022, killing three people, causing part of the road section to collapse into the sea and oil tankers on the adjacent rail section to catch fire.
Ukraine Top Official admitted the Attack on October
Russia’s homeland security service, the FSB, did some arrests over the attack and also revealed details of the alleged Ukrainian terrorist plot, including its mastermind. The agency accused the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry of being behind the explosion, which damaged the strategic structure.
UK intelligence officials apparently commissioned a study in April examining ways to blow up Russia’s Crimea Bridge, The Grayzone has reported.
A top Ukrainian defense official marked 500 days of war on Saturday by admitting responsibility for an attack last year that seriously damaged Russia’s bridge to the occupied Crimea Peninsula.
In a post on Telegram, Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, wrote that the Kerch Strait Bridge was targeted to disrupt Moscow’s supply lines. She noted that Saturday marks 273 days since the “first strike” on the bridge, which was carried out “in order to break the logistics of the Russians.”
The 19-kilometer (11.8 miles) bridge was opened in 2018. Its construction began shortly after the peninsula voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia in the wake of the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev.
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