The Ukrainian military has not been able to solve the mystery behind the structure being erected along the Kerch Bridge in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Questions have been circulating online over satellite images that show what appears to be a secondary bridge being raised parallel to the original one.
A Ukrainian navy spokesperson, Captain Third Rank Dmytro Pletenchuk, speculated that it could be a “protective structure or some other crossing” but added that “it is a little early to draw conclusions.”
“What it is will be clear when they finish it,” he said Thursday on a broadcast of the Yedyni Novyni marathon.
Pletenchuk went on: “And this season, they most likely won’t be able to do it. Because the period of storms begins, and, accordingly, it will be very difficult to build something in such conditions.”
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email for comment.
The Kerch Bridge, also known as the Crimean Bridge, is a significant piece of infrastructure that connects the Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia across the Kerch Strait. It holds considerable strategic importance since it can be used to ferry traffic and supplies into Crimea from the Russian mainland.
Earlier this month, Atesh, a pro-Kyiv military partisan group of Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, said the Kerch Bridge is “living its final days.”
In a Telegram post on September 8, it said: “As a result of the damage sustained, the structural elements of the bridge are degrading, leading to the crumbling of its parts. The attitude toward its condition is becoming increasingly dismissive, no one pays due attention to it anymore.”
Ukraine struck the 19-kilometer (nearly 12-mile) road and rail bridge in October 2022 and again in July 2023. Kyiv has vowed future strikes on the structure as it seeks to recapture the peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
A stock photo shows Crimea’s Kerch Bridge in 2018. Satellite images have revealed what appears to be a secondary bridge being raised parallel to the original one.
AP
Kyiv’s July 2023 attack on the bridge damaged its crucial railway, contrary to Russian claims at the time that the attack affected only the roadway on spans of the structure, satellite photos obtained by Newsweek revealed.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said in April that another strike on the bridge was “inevitable.”
This comes as Ukraine is set to receive a new military package consisting of medium-range cluster bombs, an array of rockets, artillery and armored vehicles valued at $375 million, including munitions for the highly effective High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.
The U.S. announced its latest immediate military aid package on September 25, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the country to present his “victory plan” to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and other U.S. officials.
