In a delicate moment for Russian forces, which accumulate defeats on the battlefields of the Ukrainian War, an explosion this Saturday (8) destroyed part of the only bridge that connects Russian territory to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by the Kremlin in 2014. structure is considered a crucial supply route for Vladimir Putin’s troops in the invaded country.
Russian authorities said a truck exploded, which also set fire to seven tanks on a train carrying fuel. At least three people died, according to preliminary information.
Sections of the 19 km long bridge would have collapsed. There was no damage to the arch of the structure built over the Kerch Strait, which separates the Black and Azov Seas.
Russia captured Crimea in 2014 without a single shot, and the Kerch Bridge was opened to great fanfare by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself four years later.
The structure represents an important supply route for Kremlin forces, which have taken control of most of the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, and for the naval port of Sevastopol.
It remains unclear whether the explosion was a deliberate attack or an accident, but the damage to the structure comes at a time when Russia has suffered successive defeats on the war fronts. The explosion also happened the day after Putin’s 70th birthday.
The head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksii Danilov, posted a video of the bridge on fire in an ironic tone on social media, alongside a video of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday Mr President”.
Since the invasion began on February 24, Ukrainian officials have alluded to a desire to destroy the Kerch Bridge, seen in Ukraine as a symbol of Russian occupation of Crimea. Ukraine’s postal service said on Saturday it would print a special stamp to commemorate the explosion.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Kyiv’s reaction to the destruction of infrastructure “testifies to its terrorist nature”. Sergei Aksionov, the Russian governor of Crimea, said traffic had been suspended while damage was assessed.
Images posted on social media showed half of the road destroyed and the other half still stuck but cracked as a train on the upper bridge was engulfed in flames. Other shots from a distance showed thick smoke rising from part of the bridge.
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