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Ukraine has announced that its forces demolished two bridges inside Russia using inexpensive drones to ignite hidden stockpiles of mines and ammunition. The destroyed crossings, located close to Ukraine’s Kharkiv border, were reportedly key to resupplying Russian troops operating in the region.
According to Kyiv, Russian forces had already mined the bridges as a precautionary measure, intending to detonate them themselves if Ukraine made a sudden breakthrough. This tactic mirrors Ukraine’s own actions at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, when bridges leading toward Kyiv were blown up to stall advancing Russian columns.
What makes this latest incident unusual is that Ukrainian troops were able to exploit Russia’s defensive preparations, turning their own explosives against them.
How the Operation Unfolded
The 58th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, which carried out the mission, said they began investigating after observing suspicious movements around one of the bridges.
“It became clear something was being hidden there,” a brigade member told CNN. Traditional reconnaissance drones proved ineffective due to poor signal reception under the bridge, so the unit deployed a first-person-view (FPV) drone with fiber optics.
Drone footage revealed a significant cache of anti-tank mines and other explosives concealed beneath the structure. A torn fabric sheet, believed to have been covering the stash, was also spotted. The Ukrainian team then directed their drone into the pile, causing a massive detonation.
Video captured by a second camera positioned nearby confirmed the strike, showing the bridge erupt in a fireball. CNN geolocated the site to Russia’s Belgorod region, just across the border from Kharkiv.
Encouraged by the success, Ukrainian forces inspected a second bridge and discovered it was similarly rigged with mines. They repeated the strike, destroying it in the same manner. “We saw an opportunity and took it,” the brigade representative explained.
Strategic and Symbolic Impact
The demolition of the bridges is being seen in Kyiv as one of the few bright spots amid a difficult military landscape. Russian forces continue to grind forward in parts of eastern Ukraine, while Moscow simultaneously bombards Ukrainian cities with near-daily aerial strikes that have left civilians dead and infrastructure damaged.
The attacks on the bridges therefore carry both practical and symbolic weight: they disrupt Russian logistics while also showcasing Ukraine’s ability to innovate with limited resources. Russia, however, has so far not issued any comment on the incident.
The Growing Role of Cheap Drones
One of the most striking elements of the operation is its cost. The drones used in the mission were valued between $600 and $725 each—remarkably inexpensive compared to traditional military-grade munitions.
Destroying bridges typically requires advanced weaponry, such as guided missiles launched from aircraft or HIMARS rocket systems supplied by Western allies. These options cost tens of thousands of dollars per strike. For comparison, Germany recently purchased three HIMARS launchers from the U.S. for $30 million, with each rocket priced in the tens of thousands.
By contrast, small FPV drones allow Ukraine to carry out precision strikes at a fraction of the cost, making them one of the most effective tools in asymmetric warfare. This is not the first time Kyiv has leaned on such tactics. In June, Ukrainian forces used similar drones to damage or destroy dozens of Russian aircraft by smuggling the devices near military airfields inside trucks before launching them.
The success of these latest strikes highlights how low-cost technology is reshaping the battlefield, giving Ukraine ways to counter Russia’s superior firepower while stretching limited resources to maximum effect.
Prediction
While the destruction of the bridges is unlikely to shift the overall balance of the war, it demonstrates that Ukraine remains capable of strategic ingenuity even under intense pressure. For Kyiv, victories like these provide not just a military advantage but also a morale boost at a time when Russian advances and political stalemates threaten to sap momentum.
