Russia-Ukraine war: Key bridge hit with first Russian drone boat attack of the war

People walk in a street as smoke rises in the air after shelling in Odesa, Ukraine. File photo / AP

Russia attacked a key bridge in southern Ukraine yesterday, deploying a boat drone for the first time since the war began.

Western analysts warned that the boat drones posed a “major new threat” to Ukrainian supply lines and control of the Black Sea. “Russia was not known to have these types of drones or to think in these terms,” said H I Sutton, a naval analyst. “We may see another shift in the war in the Black Sea. This time in Russia’s favour.”

Video of the attack showed a boat speeding towards the low-slung Zatoka railway and road drawbridge near Odessa. As it passes under the bridge the boat explodes, debris flies into the water and smoke billows into the night sky.

Neither the Russian nor Ukrainian militaries have commented, although Russian opposition media confirmed the geolocation of the video.

Ukraine has attacked the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea, and Novorossiysk, further along, the Russian Black Sea coast, several times with boat drones but this is the first time Russia has used one.

Supporters of Vladimir Putin celebrated the attack. “A year after the start of the Special Operation we have started to use unmanned maritime drones,” said Poddubniy, a Russian military blogger with 862,000 subscribers. “I’m happy that the people who promised this type of equipment have come through.”

The bridge is only a few hundred metres long but is strategically important as it crosses the mouth of the Dniester Estuary which flows into the Black Sea. It is also the most direct and the only Ukraine-controlled route linking Odessa with Romania and the Danube Delta, a shipping gateway into central Europe.

Further to the east, reports said that an intensified level of fighting continued along the front lines.

Russia’s ministry of defence confirmed that it had fired more than 100 missiles at Ukraine in one of the heaviest attacks of the war.