A section of the R-280 highway in Russia’s Rostov Oblast was closed after drone debris damaged a bridge’s road surface, disrupting a route to Crimea, Gov. Yuriy Sliusar said Nov. 8.
The damage occurred at kilometer 97 in Neklinovsky district and also affected two crawler cranes, Sliusar said. Traffic initially crossed the bridge in alternating directions before he announced that the approach was closed. He reported no injuries.
In a later update, Sliusar said debris from an air attack damaged and ignited a transformer at the Sulin substation in Millerovsky district. The outage affected the Sulinskoye, Voloshinskoye and Titovskoye rural settlements. He gave no count of residents or customers without power.
The R-280 connects Rostov-on-Don with Simferopol via Mariupol and Melitopol. Russia’s Transport Ministry describes it as a land route to Crimea. The United Nations General Assembly has identified Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia as Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by Russia.
The Kyiv Independent characterized the attacks as Ukrainian, while Sliusar’s updates described an air attack and drone debris without naming who launched the drones. Sliusar said restoration work would start after safety precautions were complete, but gave no schedule for repairs or for reopening the highway.
