Two Ukrainian missiles were shot down by anti-aircraft defense near the Kerch Strait, said the Russian leader of Crimea Serhii Aksyonov, TASS reports.

According to him, the bridge was not damaged. Traffic on the bridge was stopped.

“In the area of ​​the Kerch Strait, air defense forces shot down two enemy missiles. The bridge in Crimea is not damaged,” Aksyonov said.

He asked the inhabitants of the peninsula to remain calm and trust only official sources of information.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the Ukrainians fired at the bridge with S-200 missiles, adding that there were no casualties, RIA Novosti reports.

Images that appeared online showed large plumes of smoke near the bridge, but Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to Aksyonov, said they were deliberately created by Russian forces.

“Special services deployed a smoke screen. Traffic will be restored in the near future,” he wrote.

The attack came after Russia said it had destroyed 20 Ukrainian drones launched in Crimea between Friday and Saturday.

Ukraine attacked the Kerch bridge several times, the most destruction was caused on October 8 last year, when both the road and railway parts of the bridge were seriously damaged. The Russians announced the full restoration of road traffic in February, and rail traffic returned to 100% in May.

We will also remind that last Saturday, a Russian oil tanker was shot down by Ukrainian drones in the Kerch Strait just a day after the attack on the naval base near the port of Novorossiysk in the south of Russia.

The Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Bridge, crosses the Kerch Strait and connects Crimea occupied by Russia. It was built after Moscow illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.