Ukraine Used Sea Drones to Take Out Vital Bridge to Russia: NATO Source

Ukrainian forces disabled a critical bridge linking Russia and the Crimea with waterborne drones early Monday morning, Ukrainian and NATO officials have told VICE News. 

Russia retaliated hours later by “terminating” a deal coordinating Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea.

A NATO official in Brussels confirmed the Ukrainian involvement in the attack on the Kerch Bridge to VICE News on the condition of anonymity. This confirms accounts given to other news outlets on background by Ukrainian intelligence officials, who have not officially taken credit for the operation. 

The 12-mile Kerch bridge connects mainland Russia to occupied Crimea and serves as a critical logistical route for the Russian forces invading Ukraine. The attack, according to Russian officials, killed two adults and wounded a child as their car passed over the bridge. 

In October, another apparent Ukrainian attack knocked out the railway portion of the bridge for three months. Monday’s attack, according to footage widely shared on Russian Telegram channel, disabled both traffic lanes and appeared to cause significantly more damage than the October attack. 

“Ukraine wants to make it harder for Russia to supply its forces and force logistical routes closer to the frontlines, where ideally they will be targeted by long range weapons systems,” said the NATO official. “Kech [bridge] is much farther from Ukrainian artillery than the land routes they’ll be forced to use, at least for now.”

Russia’s decision to terminate a Turkish-brokered agreement that allowed Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain producers, to export goods through the Black Sea was announced in response to the bridge attack. Terminating the deal puts tens of millions of tonnes of food exports, mostly to markets in the Middle East and Africa, at risk. The decision from Moscow to pull out did not come as a particular surprise, said the NATO official, as the expiring deal was expected to be difficult to renew after Turkey’s recent moves towards closer ties to the West. 

“The grain deal was going to be a tough renewal because the original broker – [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan – is no longer seen by the Russians as semi neutral in the wake of recent events.”

Since his reelection earlier this year, Erdogan’s decision to allow Finnish and Swedish ascension to NATO, which he had previously opposed, as well as continued arms sales to Ukraine and the unexpected release of Ukrainian prisoners of war, that Turkey had promised Russia would not be returned until after the war’s conclusion. 

“Putin doesn’t trust Erdogan and never expected him to keep all of whatever promises they’d privately made about Ukraine but he clearly didn’t expect to abruptly and publicly lose on every front,” said the official. “The bridge didn’t help with the [deal’s] termination but nobody realistically thought Putin would give Erdogan another diplomatic win in the wake of such humiliation.”

According to the EU, Ukraine exported 30 million metric tons of grain under the agreement, representing as much as 10 percent of the world’s wheat and 15 percent of corn. With 64 percent of these exports headed to developing nations, there are fears of price spikes, diminished supply and possible famine in vulnerable countries.