US comments on Crimean Bridge attack

Washington is “monitoring” the situation with the Kerch Bridge to Crimea, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Monday. He did not directly answer whether the US supported Ukraine’s attack on the bridge that killed two civilians and orphaned a 14-year-old girl.

Asked about the strike on the bridge during the State Department press briefing, Blinken said he did not have “anything in particular to offer on that.”

“This is a situation that we’re monitoring,” Blinken told reporters. “I can say, as a general proposition, of course Ukraine has to decide how it conducts this war in defense of its territory, its people, its freedom.”

Russian authorities have said that the bridge was targeted early on Monday by two seaborne drones. The explosion did not damage any of the pillars, but took out one span of the road section as a family was passing by in a car. 

Aleksey Kulik, 40, and his wife Natalya, 36 were killed on the spot. Their daughter Angelina, 14, was airlifted to Krasnodar with serious injuries.

“The incident is yet another terrorist attack by the Kiev regime,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday afternoon. “This crime is pointless from the military point of view – since the Crimean Bridge has long not been used for military transport – and brutal, since only innocent civilians were killed and injured.” He vowed a swift and severe retaliation against Ukraine. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the reaction from Kiev “cynical and monstrous,” as some Ukrainian lawmakers and social media users celebrated the deaths of the Kuliks and the suffering of their daughter. According to Ukrainian media, the attack was a joint operation of the Navy and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

It is the second fatal attack by Kiev on the bridge, built in 2018 to connect Crimea to the Russian mainland. Earlier this month, Ukrainian authorities admitted they were behind the October 2022 truck bombing that killed three civilians and damaged both the road and rail spans. Moscow responded by launching missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure. The bridge was fully repaired by March 5.