A guest on Russian state TV has decried Ukraine's attack on a large Russian airfield in annexed Crimea that is reported to have killed up to 30 Russian personnel and wounded a further 80 people.
Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin said during an appearance on Full Contact with Vladimir Solovyov that the strike served as a rehearsal for a future Ukrainian attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea peninsula, local news outlet MK.ru reported. Host Solovyov is one of the most prominent figures in Kremlin-backed media.
The Kerch Strait Bridge serves as a key supply route for Russia's forces and is Moscow's sole land link with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Kyiv was behind the strike on the airfield in Dzhankoy on April 17, and thanked his top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, for organizing the operation.
Newsweek has contacted Russia's defense ministry for comment by email.
Shurygin said that the attack on the Russian Navy's Dzhankoy airbase, which is reported to house the 39th Helicopter Regiment of the 27th Mixed Aviation Division, served as "target practice" for a future Ukrainian strike on the Kerch Strait Bridge, also known as the Crimean Bridge, according to MK.ru.
Ukraine struck the 19-kilometer (12-mile) road and rail bridge in October 2022 and again in July 2023. The bridge is crucial to sustaining Moscow's military offensives in southern Ukraine, and Kyiv has vowed future strikes on the structure as it seeks to recapture the peninsula.
Shurygin claimed Kyiv used seven ATACMS missiles in the attack on Wednesday, and that the strike was a rehearsal to test how Russia's air defense works. He said an attack on the Kerch bridge will most likely take place on May 7, although he did not elaborate on why he highlighted that particular date.
In November, Vasyl Maliuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said that Kyiv has "plenty of surprises" in store for the Kerch bridge, calling it "doomed."
"There will be many surprises in the future. And not only regarding the Crimean bridge. The bridge is doomed," Maliuk said at the time in the first of a series of televised documentaries called SBU, the Special Operations of Victory.
Retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commanding general of United States Army Europe, previously told Newsweek that the targeting of the bridge is part of Kyiv's multi-domain counteroffensive to reclaim occupied territories, including Crimea.
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Isabel van Brugen is a Newsweek Reporter based in Kuala Lumpur. Her focus is reporting on the Russia-Ukraine war. Isabel ... Read more
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