A powerful truck explosion seriously damaged Russia’s road-and-rail bridge to Crimea Saturday, hitting a prestige symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula and the key supply route to Russian forces battling to hold territory captured in southern Ukraine.

Moscow stopped short of assigning blame, but the speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament immediately accused Ukraine, while downplaying the severity of the damage.

“Now they have something to be proud of: over 23 years of their management, they didn’t manage to build anything worthy of attention in Crimea, but they’ve managed to damage the surface of the Russian bridge,” Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of the State Council of the Republic, wrote on Telegram.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, “The Kiev regime’s reaction to the destruction of civilian infrastructure highlights its terrorist nature.”

Kyiv has not officially claimed responsibility, but Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge.

The official Twitter account of Ukraine's government posted “Sick burn.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, lauded the attack, tweeting, "Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled."

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