Ukraine has boldly attempted an underwater strike on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea, a structure highly valued by Putin. Kyiv asserts that the bridge has been left in a ‘state of disrepair’ following the attack.

Approximately 1100 kilograms of explosives reportedly went off early today, impacting the submerged pillars of the strategically important 12-mile bridge, which serves as a crucial supply line for Russian forces in Ukraine.

Footage shows smoke billowing over the bridge following the blast.

Head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, said: ‘We previously hit the Crimean Bridge twice in 2022 and 2023. 

‘So today we continued this tradition underwater. No illegal Russian facilities have a place on the territory of our state. 

‘In light of this, targeting the Crimean Bridge is fully justifiable, especially since the adversary utilizes it as a supply route for their military forces.

‘Crimea is Ukraine, and any manifestations of occupation will receive our tough response.’

Russian forces temporarily closed the bridge this morning, according to Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda.

No casualties have been reported.  

It comes after Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases in Russia on Sunday. 

The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. 

Dubbed ‘Operation Spiderweb’, the co-ordinated strikes left Vladimir Putin humiliated and his prized warplanes in smouldering ruins.

Back in 2023, the Kremlin downed two Ukrainian missiles that were aimed at Russia’s Kerch bridge to Crimea.

In 2022, a part of the bridge was blown up after a truck exploded on it, with Russia blaming the blast on Ukraine. 

The crossing carries heavy significance for Moscow, both logistically and psychologically, as a key artery for military and civilian supplies and as an assertion of Kremlin control of the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014.

The attack on the Kerch bridge comes a day after delegations from Kyiv and Moscow held a second round of direct talks on the possibility of ending the war in Ukraine. 

The two sides exchanged their visions of what a peace settlement could look like at the negotiations, mediated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, which once again did not yield a ceasefire.

Despite the flurry of diplomacy urged on by US President Donald Trump, their demands have thus far been irreconcilable.

Hours after the talks concluded, Russian state news agencies published the full list of Moscow’s peace terms that confirmed its maximalist claims.

Russia has repeatedly demanded it retains territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies and for Kyiv to cede even more land.

Moscow in 2022 annexed four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – despite not having full control over them.

In its roadmap to peace, something what Russia calls a ‘memorandum’, it demanded Ukraine to pull its forces out of parts of those regions that its army still controls as a prerequisite to any peace settlement.

Russia also annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and fully controls it since then.

Ukraine has said it will never recognise its occupied territories, including Crimea, as Russian.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv may be forced to try to secure their return through diplomatic means – effectively conceding that Russia could maintain control over some land in any peace deal.

The Russian memorandum starts from a clause saying that all Moscow-occupied territories in Ukraine must be recognized.

This is a breaking news story, more to follow.