Almost every week there are drone strikes on facilities on Russian soil, from Moscow’s financial district to military airfields or train stations. So far, Kiev has never acknowledged responsibility for these sabotage. But something is changing in the country, which for the past year and a half has been suffering from an invasion by Vladimir Putin’s troops with the aim of ending the Ukrainian state.
Ukrainian authorities have admitted to being behind the sabotage of the Kerch Bridge. In a show of unprecedented openness, Vasil Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), last week detailed how in October 2022 and July 2023 they partially destroyed the only road connecting Russia with the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula. of Moscow in 2014. Maliuk’s testimony is extraordinary because it marks the first time Ukrainian forces have admitted they were behind attacks on Russia’s infrastructure, which until recently was a red line for its international allies. They had reiterated that they did not view Ukrainian military actions positively either on Russian soil or in Crimea, an area which the Russians, despite illegally seizing with arms, consider an inalienable part of their sovereignty.
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Maliuk’s comments would confirm that the US and European countries that support Ukraine are becoming more flexible on their borders. Further proof of this is Washington’s agreement to supply its F-16 aircraft to Ukraine. The Netherlands and Denmark last Sunday announced an agreement to donate more than 60 of these US-made fighter jets to the Kiev Air Force. Just six months earlier, President Joe Biden’s administration was still declining the possibility of authorizing the shipment of these planes, fearing that it would escalate tensions with Moscow.
Maliuk first spoke about the operations against the Kerch Bridge on CNN on August 15. The head of Ukraine’s intelligence service confirmed that a newly developed naval drone – according to his version made entirely by Ukrainian military engineers – hit one of the concrete piers of the bridge last July, partially destroying the 19-kilometer highway 2018 and spanning the Kerch Strait. Dubbed the “Baby of the Sea,” the marine drone carried 850 kilos of explosives.
Despite its frank name, the “Sea Baby” has proven to be one of the most effective sea warfare weapons: this summer again, the amphibious assault ship Olengorskii Gorniak and a tanker carrying fuel for the Russian army were attacked with these drones by the SSU. The great success of the coup against Olengorskii Gorniak on August 4 lies in the fact that it took place on the other side of Crimea, on the Russian coast of Krasnodar province, in the military port of Novorossiysk. The unmanned device traveled no less than 422 miles (about 680 kilometers) without being detected by the Russian fleet, which is keeping the Black Sea closed.
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Units in the production process of the Ukrainian bomber naval drone “Baby of the Sea”. Security services of Ukraine
In the video of the naval attack on the Crimean bridge, provided by the SSU to CNN, there is a detail that indicates a high level of Ukrainian infiltration on the Russian-occupied peninsula: in addition to the camera built into the bomb boat, the video contains images a camera installed on the bridge. In a subsequent interview with Ukrainian broadcaster NV, Maliuk confirmed that they have access to cameras mounted on infrastructure. The head of the security service did not give any details, but assured that the cameras could be used to track the path of the truck bomb that severely damaged the bridge in October 2022 and caused months of delays in the delivery of equipment to Russian troops on the front. South.
The preparations for the sabotage truck could be the script for a movie in the Mission Impossible saga, according to Maliuk. Agents of the Ukrainian secret service hired a group of “Russian smugglers” to theoretically ship 21 rolls of polyethylene plastic to Crimea. What the porters didn’t know was that a ton of hexane, an explosive hydrocarbon, was hidden in each coil.
The Russian Security Service (FSB) reported at the time that the cargo, which first left the Ukrainian city of Odessa in August 2022, was transhipped to Bulgaria, from there to Armenia, then to Georgia and finally to Russia. In Russia, 22 people were arrested who are being investigated for alleged complicity in the attack. Maliuk claims they were unaware of the operation.
The SSU hid the 21 tons of hexane in the metal cylinders of the coils, choosing exactly the thickness of the polyethylene that made it possible to hide the explosives in the X-ray scanners that monitor vehicles entering the bridge. Maliuk also revealed to NV that the truck had an electronic system that maintained GPS connection with the explosives detonator, despite the fact that satellite signal jammers were installed at the approaches to the Kerch Bridge.
The truck detonated at 5:40 a.m. on the morning of October 8, coinciding with the passage of a train, destroying one direction of the highway and a section of the railway line. Russian authorities reported the deaths of five people, including the truck driver.
Two days later, on October 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a three-month bombing raid on Ukraine’s power grid. According to experts interviewed by EL PAÍS, what the Kremlin announced in retaliation for the Kerch Bridge sabotage was in fact a plan prepared months in advance to leave Ukraine in the dark and without heating during the winter.
Crimea Restoration Summit
The revelations about the attacks on the Kerch Bridge coincide with celebrations this Wednesday of the third Crimean Platform summit. This is a working group set up by President Volodimir Zelenski in 2021 to pool international support and push for the peninsula’s release. In the 2022 edition, the Crimean Platform presented the intervention by videoconference of the main European leaders and, on the part of the United States, Minister of Foreign Affairs Antony Blinken.
The third summit will be marked by increasing pressure on Kiev to accept that one way to end the all-out war is to cede part of the occupied territories to Russia. The 2022 summit was attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and also the President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, to underline that the EU remains firmly demanding that Putin return Crimea to Ukraine .
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