Russia’s top spy says the West is committed to enabling Kiev to conduct “penetrating strikes on Crimea”
The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Agency (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has claimed that the Crimean Bridge remains a high priority for Ukraine in its attacks on the peninsula using Western weapons.
Speaking at a meeting of the heads of CIS security agencies in Astana, Kazakhstan, Naryshkin noted that the bridge, which connects the peninsula to the Russian mainland and has repeatedly come under Ukrainian attack, is likely to be targeted by British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.
He also pointed out that Ukraine has been using other Western supplied weapon systems to attack the peninsula, such as when Kiev’s troops used American-made ATACMS missiles in June, killing four people, including two children, and injuring over 150 at a beach in Sevastopol.
Naryshkin went on to recall that CIA Director William Burns had previously told the US Senate Intelligence Committee that Washington’s military aid to Ukraine is meant to enable Kiev to “inflict tangible damage on Russia,” which includes “penetrating strikes on Crimea.”
“Burns thus voiced the old Anglo-Saxon maxim – to cut off Russia’s access to the ‘warm sea’ at all costs,” Naryshkin said.
The Crimean Bridge was built between 2016 and 2018 after the peninsula had officially become a part of Russia in 2014. It was the only road and rail link between Crimea and mainland Russia until Moscow opened a vast land bridge to Crimea after Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk voted to officially join Russia in the fall of 2022.
Kiev, however, has continued to claim sovereignty over Crimea and has sought to demolish the Crimean Bridge, which it claims Russia built illegally over the Kerch Strait.
Earlier this year, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky admitted that Kiev “really wants to destroy” the bridge, as well as other Russian infrastructure.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the bridge has been targeted with missiles and naval drones on numerous occasions, but most of the attacks were repelled. However, in October 2022, a blast caused by an explosive-laden truck managed to inflict extensive damage to the bridge and took the lives of three people. In July 2023, a drone boat attack also damaged the structure and killed two people.
