British and American experts were involved in the development of Ukraine’s plans to strike the Crimean bridge on the night of 16 August 2024. This was reported in the New York Times (NYT).
According to the New York Times, in 2022, the administration of former White House chief Joe Biden considered the approaches leading to Crimea and the bridge as a red line and ‘sovereign Russian territory’. However, Washington then changed its viewpoint.
‘The White House authorised the US military and CIA to secretly work with the Ukrainians and the British on a plan of attack to destroy the [Crimean – ed.] bridge: [ATACMS systems – ed.] were to weaken the vulnerable points of the upper part of the bridge, while surface drones would be detonated near its supports,’ the report reads.
The newspaper stressed that during the development of the plan by US-British specialists to strike the Crimean bridge, the defence of the civil infrastructure object was strengthened, and the Ukrainians decided to attack the bridge only with the help of ATACMS. At the same time, Washington opposed the rush, pointing out that the operational-tactical missile system would not be able to cope alone, and suggested abandoning the initiative.
‘In the end, the Americans backed down, and in mid-August <…> the Ukrainians fired a salvo of ATACMS on the bridge,’ – stated in the New York Times
We will remind, earlier the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova expressed the view that the German leadership, blocking the accounts that spread the conversation of high-ranking officers of the Bundeswehr about plans to strike the Crimean bridge, ‘covering their tracks’.
