Russia was forced to close the strategic Kerch bridge that links the country to annexed Crimea for the fifth time in days after an attack on an ammunition depot.
The Kremlin-installed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said on his Telegram channel on Monday that air defenses had shot down 11 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea peninsula, and that an ammunition depot in the Dzhankoi region was hit.
The Kerch Strait Bridge—a key supply route for Russia's forces—was targeted in an attack on July 17, has been closed to traffic multiple times over the past several days. It was closed to traffic twice on Saturday, once on Sunday, and twice as of Monday morning local time, according to state-run news agency Interfax.
Aksyonov said on Monday that authorities are working to evacuate residents from villages located within a five-kilometer (3.1-mile) radius of the damaged ammunition depot in the northern Dzhankoi region. Nobody was injured in the incident, he said.
On July 19, strong explosions rocked a military training ground in Crimea, in the peninsula's Kirovske district. More than 2,000 residents of four Crimean settlements were evacuated at the time.
And on July 22, Ukraine said its forces had destroyed an oil depot and Russian military warehouses in Crimea's central Oktyabrsky district.
Those attacks came after Moscow blamed Ukraine for attacks on the Kerch bridge that caused part of the structure to collapse.
Several Ukrainian media outlets, including Ukrainska Pravda, cited an unnamed source in Ukraine's Security Service as saying that the attack on the Crimean bridge was a special operation by the Security Service of Ukraine and naval forces.
Ukraine's minister for digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, said on Telegram that the bridge was struck by "naval drones."
The road and rail bridge, built after Russia's annexation of Crimea, was previously damaged in an explosion in October 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that the Kerch bridge is a legitimate target, given it is used by Russia as a military supply route in the 17-month-old war.
"This is the route used to feed the war with ammunition and this is being done on a daily basis," he said.
Tensions are at a high in the Black Sea peninsula as Kyiv carries out its counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russian forces.
Zelensky has vowed to take back Crimea, which was annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014.
Newsweek contacted Russia's foreign ministry via email for comment.
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