Kyiv, Ukraine — A massive explosion rocked the Crimean Bridge, a strategic link between mainland Russia and Crimea, early Saturday morning, striking a symbol of President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to control Ukraine.
The damage to the bridge that provided a road and rail link between Russia and the Ukrainian peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014, is another major setback to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and disrupts a key supply route.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the government has no timeline for repairing the 12-mile bridge.
Russia’s investigative committee, a senior law enforcement agency, said a truck explosion detonated fuel tankers as a freight train crossed the bridge. The cause of the truck explosion was initially unclear. After the explosion, thick plumes of smoke and flames could be seen from afar.
Putin personally opened the $4 billion bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge because it spans the Kerch Strait between the Black and Azov Seas, in 2018. The opening of the bridge was intended to symbolize Russia’s ownership of Crimea.
Russia’s invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 proved to be a precursor to the invasion that Putin launched that year, which has used the peninsula as a key base of operations for Russian forces. Russia has claimed to have annexed four more Ukrainian regions.
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The blast was celebrated in Kyiv, where government officials greeted it and posted pictures of it on social media collapsed concrete spans the bridge and filming of the apparent moment of the explosion and shows vehicles driving across the bridge just seconds before a massive fireball engulfs the area.
Mykhailo Podoloyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called it “the beginning”. “Everything illegal must be destroyed” Podolyak added on Twitter. The Ukrainian government initially gave no official explanation as to the cause of the explosion. But in a mockery, the government’s official Twitter account Posted: “sick burn.”
A Ukrainian government official told the Washington Post Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the bridge attack. News site Ukrainska Pravda was the first to report the government’s alleged role, citing an unidentified law enforcement official who said Ukraine’s security service, SBU, was involved.
Ukraine has previously carried out daring attacks deep within Russian territory, including at an airbase in Crimea and at military targets across the border in Russia’s Belgorod region. However, if confirmed that the bridge blast was planned, it would be Ukraine’s most impressive attack yet, which has been under attack by Russia’s far larger and better-equipped military since late February.
Russian authorities said the blast happened around 6 a.m. local time. A video released by the government newspaper Izvestia appeared to show it at 6:03 am. Initial information indicated three people had been killed, including the driver of the truck that appeared to explode and two people whose bodies were recovered from the water, the investigative committee said.
The investigative committee said the driver of the truck was identified as a resident of Krasnodar Territory in Russia. “Investigations at his place of residence have begun,” it said. “The truck’s path and documentation are being investigated.”
Russian officials have long warned of severe retaliation for strikes on Russian territory.
The blast brings a new element of tension to the war at a time when Putin and those around him have repeatedly warned that Russia could use nuclear weapons. President Biden this week warned of a possible nuclear “Armageddon,” reflecting heightened concerns in the United States, which has the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal after Russia.
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Parliament of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada tweeted a picture of the damaged bridge and said: “@Crimea, long time no see” along with a heart emoji. And the head of the Ukrainian Post said The agency would issue a new stamp showing a damaged bridge with the inscription “Crimea Bridge – Done”.
Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, addressed the barrage of memes and derisive social media posts from Ukraine. “The reaction of the Kiev regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, including train stations, apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and theaters.
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Leonid Slutsky, a deputy in Russia’s Duma, said reprisals were “inevitable” if Ukraine’s responsibility was confirmed. “The answer has to be harsh, but not necessarily frontal,” he said. “Russia has extensive experience in fighting terrorists, and those who use their methods should understand this very well.”
Peskov said Putin had been briefed by ministers and government agencies about the “emergency” on the bridge and had ordered the establishment of a commission of inquiry including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, officials in Crimea and the FSB, Russia’s security service.
The commission was instructed to “find out the reasons for the accident and eliminate the consequences as soon as possible,” Peskov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The investigative committee said it had opened a criminal case into the incident and dispatched forensic experts to the scene.
The bridge is the only direct road and rail link from mainland Russia to Crimea. The crippling of such a key artery will hamper Russia’s ability to reinforce and resupply its troops while Ukraine launches a counteroffensive to retake occupied territory in the southern Kherson region.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian forces have accelerated their advance into Russian-held towns and villages in the north-east of the Kharkiv region, in Donetsk in the east and in Kherson in the south.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Russian forces would receive “continuous support” in areas north of Crimea.
“The Russian troop group involved in the special military operation in the Nikolayev-Kryvorozhsk and Zaporozhsk directions of operations is continuously being resupplied entirely by land and partially by sea,” the Defense Ministry said, according to the state-controlled Ria Novosti news agency.
The extent of the damage to the bridge and whether any of it would remain passable for vehicles was not immediately clear. Peskov told Ria Novosti there were “no forecasts as to when the affected areas will be rebuilt.”
While Russian Railways canceled all passenger services to and from Crimea and said tickets would be refunded free of charge, the Transport Ministry later said train services were expected to resume by Saturday night.
Russian authorities immediately sought to allay fears that the blast would result in shortages of fuel, food and other essential supplies in Crimea, noting that Russia’s military occupation had created Putin’s long-awaited “land bridge” to Crimea would have.
“A land corridor has been established through the new regions,” said Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the head of Crimea.
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Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev initially spoke of a rush to buy petrol, but announced a limit on grocery shopping to three kilograms or three packs of products per person later said the restrictions had been lifted.
Sergey Aksyonov, head of the Crimean region, said reconstruction of the bridge will begin as soon as the investigation is complete. “There are no risks in this regard, and there is no need to panic,” he said, according to Tass. “Through our joint efforts, we will overcome everything. There is no doubt about that.”
Abbakumova reported from Riga, Latvia. Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, and Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv contributed to this report.
War in Ukraine: What you need to know
The newest: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed decrees annexing four occupied regions of Ukraine after staged referenda were widely denounced as illegal. Follow our live updates here.
The answer: The Biden administration on Friday announced a new round of sanctions against Russia in response to the annexations, targeting government officials and family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials and defense procurement networks. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said on Friday that Ukraine was requesting “accelerated entry” into NATO in an apparent response to the annexations.
In Russia: Putin on September 21 declared a military mobilization to call up up to 300,000 reservists in a dramatic attempt to reverse setbacks in his war against Ukraine. The announcement prompted an exodus of more than 180,000 people, mostly conscript men, and renewed protests and other acts of defiance against the war.
The fight: Ukraine launched a successful counter-offensive that forced a major Russian retreat in the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September, as troops fled towns and villages they had occupied since the early days of the war, leaving behind large amounts of military equipment.
Photos: Washington Post photographers have been on the ground since the war began – here is some of their most impressive work.
How can you help: Here are ways people in the US can support the people of Ukraine, as well as what people around the world have donated.
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