Ukrainian intelligence: Damage to Crimean bridge a significant blow to Russia

That's according to Vadym Skibitskyi, a representative of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate, Ukrinform reports, citing the Ukrainian intelligence agency.

According to the report, Skibitskyi called the recent destruction of the Crimean bridge a "significant blow to Russia" as it disrupts the supply lines of the Russian occupation forces.

"The bridge is a complex structure, but there is an opportunity to strike it and hinder, first of all, logistical military supplies to Russian troops on our territory," he said.

He recalled that Russia had started the construction of an illegal structure across the Kerch Strait after the failure of a "Novorossiya" plan that provided for the creation of a land corridor from Russian territory to the peninsula in the first years of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

"(The Crimean bridge) is a strategic object that supplied the Russian group of troops first in Crimea, and today it supplies the entire southern group of troops, which is located both on the peninsula and in our temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions," Skibitskyi said.

Early on July 17, a span of the Kerch Strait Bridge collapsed following an explosion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the illegally built bridge across the Kerch Strait must be neutralized.