Blast hits Crimea bridge crucial to Russia’s war
KYIV, (Reuters) - A powerful blast damaged Russia’s road-and-rail bridge to Crimea on Saturday, hitting a prestigious symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula and the key supply route to forces battling to hold territory captured in southern Ukraine.
The early morning explosion on the bridge over the Kerch Strait, for which Russia did not immediately assign blame, prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials but no claim of responsibility.
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree instructing tighter security for the bridge as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to the peninsula.
He also ordered a commission be set up to investigate.
Russian officials said three people had been killed, probably the occupants of a car travelling near a truck that blew up. Seven fuel tanker wagons on a 59-wagon train heading for the peninsula on the bridge’s upper level also caught fire.
Limited road traffic resumed about 10 hours later, and the Transport Ministry cleared rail traffic to restart.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin ordered that the collapsed section of the bridge be dismantled immediately, domestic news agencies reported.
Divers are to start examining the damage at 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Sunday and a more detailed survey above the waterline should be completed by the end of the day, they quoted him as saying.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the 19-km (12-mile) Crimean Bridge linking it to Russia’s transport network was opened with great fanfare four years later by Putin.
It is a major artery for Russian forces who control most of southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol, whose governor told locals: “Keep calm. Don’t panic.”
It was not yet clear if the blast was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such high-profile infrastructure came as Russia has suffered several battlefield defeats and could further cloud Kremlin messages of reassurance that the conflict is going to plan.
“The situation is manageable - it’s unpleasant, but not fatal,” Crimea’s Russian governor Sergei Aksyonov told reporters. “Of course, emotions have been triggered, and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge.”
He earlier said the peninsula had a month’s worth of fuel and more than two months’ worth of food.
The blast took place a day after Putin’s 70th birthday, and coincided with the naming of Air Force General Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s third senior military appointment in a week, to take charge of the invasion effort.
‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR PRESIDENT’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy did not refer to the blast in a video address on Saturday, saying merely that the weather in Crimea was cloudy.
“But however cloudy it is, Ukrainians know ... our future is sunny. This is a future without occupiers, across our territory, particularly in Crimea,” he said.