Russia has initiated a criminal probe into the blast that blew up a truck and heavily damaged the Kerch bridge early Saturday. The bridge is Europe’s longest and a vital link between Moscow-annexed Crimea and the Russian mainland. It is a key transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, especially in the south, as well as ferrying troops across.
The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee said on social media that the blast occurred at 6:07 am (0307 GMT) in a freight truck, and caused seven fuel tanker wagons to catch fire on a train heading for the peninsula.
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“According to preliminary information, this morning on the automobile part of the Crimean bridge from the side of the Taman Peninsula, a truck was blown up, which caused seven fuel tanks on a train heading towards the Crimea peninsula to ignite,” the committee said.
It also said that two sections of the bridge had partially collapsed, but the arch spanning the Kerch Strait, the waterway through which ships travel between the Black Sea and Azov Sea, was not damaged.
The 19-kilometre (12-mile) bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov is the longest in Europe. It has cost billions of dollars to build and has provided an essential link to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge.
The investigative committee said it had sent detectives to the scene.
“Investigators of the Russian Investigative Committee are establishing all the circumstances of the incident and persons involved in the crime.”
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian governor of Crimea, said on social media that the road bridge was still intact in one direction. However, traffic has been suspended while the damage is being assessed. He further informed that the bridge’s “shipping arches were not damaged”.
The bridge opened in 2018 and was designed to link Crimea into Russia’s transport network. Spanning the Kerch Strait, it is the only crossing between occupied Crimean territory and Russia.
Putin unveiled the bridge in 2018 after Crimea was annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Recently, Putin annexed the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia after staging referendums that Kyiv and the West termed as “sham”.
(With inputs from agencies)
