According to Russian authorities, two people, a mother and a father, were killed and their daughter injured during an “emergency” on the Crimean Bridge, which connects the peninsula to Russia’s Krasnodar Krai
The road was damaged near the Crimean end of the bridge, Russia’s Transport Ministry said, but did not confirm reports that the bridge’s support piers were damaged
Russia’s Gray Zone channel, a heavily followed Telegram channel linked to the Wagner mercenary group, reported that there had been two attacks on the bridge at 03:04 (0004 GMT) and 03:20, according to Portal . Portal and the Guardian cannot verify this report
The incident could be an act of provocation by Moscow, said Natalya Humenyuk, spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Military Command, claiming that such incidents are a “typical way of solving problems by the authorities of Crimea and the aggressor country”.
Train services across the bridge will resume at 9 a.m. local time (0600 GMT), Crimea’s Russian-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov said, while further updates on ferry services to Kuban in Krasnodar were announced
Aksyonov also said law enforcement agencies would release more information about the causes of the “incident” by 9 a.m
The 19-kilometer bridge over the Kerch Strait is the only direct link between Russia’s transport network and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014
It consists of a separate road and railway track, both supported by concrete stilts, which merge into a larger span supported by steel arches at the point where ships sail between the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov
The bridge is vital to supplying Crimea with fuel, food and other products, where the port of Sevastopol is the historic home base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. It also became a key supply route for Russian forces following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year