Ukraine has struck a significant blow against Russia’s hold on occupied Crimea, announcing the destruction of a critical railway bridge over the North Crimean Canal and launching a sweeping overnight drone campaign that hit dozens of military and energy targets across the peninsula.

Kyiv’s Special Operations Forces declared on Tuesday that the railway bridge near the village of Rozdolne “no longer exists,” calling it the first such structure to be eliminated in occupied Crimea.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces described the destroyed bridge as a vital transport corridor used to move cargo, resources, and military supplies in two key directions from Russia through Crimea to support forces operating in Ukraine’s southern front. Drone strikes began hitting the structure late Sunday into Monday, collapsing part of it, before a second wave of strikes early Tuesday targeted railway repair equipment and the remaining sections of the bridge, ensuring that restoration efforts were neutralised before they could begin.

The overnight assault was part of a broader operation that saw Ukrainian drones strike approximately 60 Russian targets across temporarily occupied territories, including Crimea.

Among the sites hit were oil storage tanks at the Kerch thermal power station in eastern Crimea, the Western Crimea electrical substation in the village of Karierne, a liquefied natural gas distribution station in Simferopol, and a number of air defence and radar assets. Parts of Crimea were left without power on Tuesday, though Russian-linked energy suppliers attributed the outages to technical malfunctions rather than the strikes.

The attacks come at a particularly damaging moment for the Russian-held peninsula, with Russian authorities having already been forced to suspend civilian gasoline sales in parts of Crimea as Ukraine’s sustained campaign to disrupt supply lines and the electrical grid bites harder during the peak summer tourist season.

The cumulative effect of Ukraine’s long-range drone strategy is beginning to reshape the logistical realities for Russian forces relying on Crimea as a key supply hub.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov had last week declared that his forces were “isolating Crimea with drones,” warning that the peninsula could soon effectively become an island cut off from Russian resupply. The Ukrainian military said it has struck more than 800,000 enemy targets with drones since the start of the year, with 95 per cent of those drones domestically produced, a figure that underscores how far Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities have advanced since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.