Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) uploaded a video on June 3, 2025, announcing it has carried out a special operation involving an underwater attack on the Crimean Bridge, CCTV reported. Photo: Screenshot of the CCTV

Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) announced on Tuesday local time that it had carried out a special operation involving an underwater attack on the Crimean Bridge — the third such strike on the structure since the conflict began, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

According to CCTV, citing the SBU, Ukrainian operatives prepared for the demolition of the bridge's pillars over a period of several months. The first explosive device was successfully detonated at 4:44 am, reportedly without causing any civilian casualties.

The statement said the underwater support structures of the bridge were severely damaged at their base, with the explosion involving the equivalent of 1,100 kilograms of explosives. The bridge is now in a state of emergency and considered structurally endangered. The operation was overseen by Vasyl Malyuk, head of Ukraine's Security Service, said the report.

According to the Russian media platform RIA Novosti, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation has detained an agent of Ukrainian special services in Crimea for manufacturing an improvised explosive device (IED) intended for sabotage and terrorist acts on the peninsula.

Traffic on the Crimean Bridge has been temporarily suspended, according to a Telegram channel providing updates on the operational situation at the site, RIA Novosti said in an earlier report.

Ukrainian and Russian delegations made modest but concrete progress in renewed peace talks in Istanbul on Monday. However, the renewed negotiations come amid a backdrop of intensified military actions, Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday. 

Xinhua, citing Ukrainian officials, reported that more than 40 Russian warplanes were damaged or destroyed in a drone strike on Sunday that targeted air bases deep inside Russian territory, including in the Arctic, Siberia, and Far East regions.

The Russian Defense Ministry accused the "Kiev regime" of launching first-person-view drone attacks on multiple airfields. It said airstrips in the Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions were targeted, but that the strikes were repelled. Fires at airfields in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions were extinguished, with no casualties reported, according to Xinhua.

Global Times