Ukraine's Defense Forces struck the Chonhar and Henichesk road bridges connecting occupied Crimea to the mainland again overnight on 15 June 2026. The drone attack damaged crossings that Russia leans on to move troops and supplies onto the peninsula, and Russia-installed officials shut a key checkpoint before claiming traffic later resumed. Monitoring channels also reported fires inside Crimea itself.
Two bridges hit, the Dzhankoi crossing shut then partially reopened
The Defense Forces hit the bridges with strike drones, the Russia-installed head of the occupied part of Kherson Oblast, Vladimir Saldo, claimed. The span near Chonhar was damaged and the Dzhankoi vehicle checkpoint fully closed. Saldo stated the restrictions would last for an undefined time because of damage to infrastructure on the approaches to the administrative border with Crimea.
The same overnight attack also damaged the bridge that links Henichesk to the Arabat Spit, a long sandbar running down Ukraine's southern coast. Both are among the few land routes onto the peninsula.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed head of the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, said traffic was suspended on one of the road bridges joining northern Crimea to the mainland, with vehicles sent on a long detour through Melitopol, Novooleksiivka, Novotroitske, Chaplynka, Myrne and Armiansk.
By midday, the Russian propaganda outlet Interfax reported that Saldo had claimed reverse-mode traffic was moving again through the Dzhankoi crossing.
Ukrainian drones hit Dzhankoi as strike unit declares hunt on Russian Crimea logistics
Fires near Chonhar and at a Crimean airfield
Last night, the Crimea-monitoring Telegram channel Krymsky Veter reported two powerful explosions near the village of Donske outside Simferopol, audible in the city itself. NASA's fire detection database, FIRMS, also shows a fire near the Chonhar bridge, with thermal signatures around a former Ukrainian checkpoint now used by the Russian military. The channel separately noted a fire at the Hvardiiske airfield in occupied Crimea, at what it called an aircraft-preparation area, though no damage details were released.
Ukrainian drones knocking out the northwestern entrance to Crimea: four bridges targeted in one night
A weeks-long campaign against Crimea's land routes
Russian crews had already set up a pontoon beside the damaged Henichesk bridge on 14 June, captured in a Copernicus satellite image posted by an open-source analyst.
A similar pontoon had appeared near Chonhar on 7 June after the fixed crossing was hit.
Long queues of Russian trucks built up afterward: a satellite shot on the morning of 12 June showed at least 17 trucks and several cars waiting toward the mainland, with about 15 more trucks at the Dzhankoi checkpoint and nothing heading into Crimea, which still faces shortages of fuel and everyday goods. Ukrainian forces then struck that pontoon as well, part of a larger operation against Russian occupation logistics that hit road bridges near Armiansk, Chonhar, Henichesk, and Stavky.
