A huge explosion early Saturday morning severely damaged the only bridge that connects the annexed Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland. This was a big setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin because it cut off a key supply route for Moscow’s war in Ukraine, which was already going badly.
Images and videos from the scene showed that the blast caused part of the road on the Kerch Strait road-and-rail bridge, which Putin himself opened in 2018, to fall down. Russian officials said that, based on what they know so far, at least three people died in the explosion.
No one knows for sure what caused the explosion on Europe’s longest bridge. Russian officials say that a truck exploded, which caused parts of the bridge’s roadway that led to Crimea to fall. After that, a train of fuel tanks on a separate rail section of the bridge next to it caught fire.
Russian state media TASS said that Putin ordered a “government commission” to look into the “emergency” at the Kerch bridge in Crimea.
Also on Saturday, Russian state media said that the Russian Defense Ministry had named a new commander for what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
General Sergey Surovikin, the new leader, first served in Afghanistan and then led a unit in the second Chechen war. He has been in charge of several motorized rifle divisions and played a key role in Russia’s operations in Syria, where he was named a Hero of the Russian Federation.
His appointment is the latest step up in a military career that began in 1983. However, this year, the European Union put him on a list of people who should not be in the military.
It wasn’t clear right away how the bridge would be used in the long run. Russian officials said that some car traffic was back on the bridge’s roads that weren’t damaged by Saturday evening, and trains were running again on the bridge’s rails.
Russia’s Ministry of Transport said in a statement late Saturday that the first passenger train went back across the bridge on Saturday evening. The train went from the Crimean peninsula to Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia.
“The two-level train No. 28 went through the Crimean bridge on its way from Simferopol to Moscow. After the accident, it was the first train to go over the bridge. Train No. 28 left the capital of the Republic of Crimea on time at 17:10 and has already gone through the bridge “the sentence says.
But state media said that trucks were asked to take ferries across the strait.
At least two places where westbound lanes were blocked showed that the damage to the road was pretty bad. From the 19-kilometer (11-mile) bridge, video and pictures seemed to show that a piece of the road had fallen into the water.
After the explosion, most of Crimea raised its terror threat level to yellow on Saturday, according to a statement on Sergey Aksenov’s Telegram channel. Aksenov was put in charge of Crimea by Russia.
Aksenov also said that there will be a free ferry service in Crimea, which will be paid for by the state budget. He also said that all of the local hotels have agreed to let tourists who were stuck on the peninsula on Saturday stay for free.
The first ferry with people on it left the port in Kerch for the coast of the Kuban, a region in southern Russia that is separated from the Crimean Peninsula by the Kerch Strait.
Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said in a statement that the bridge’s lights will be turned back on Saturday night so that repairs can be done around the clock. The statement was posted on the website of the Russian Cabinet of Ministers.
The statement says that divers will start working on Sunday morning and check all of the bridge’s supports. Once all the results are in, a decision will be made about whether or not buses and other heavy vehicles can use the bridge.
For now, buses and delivery trucks can’t use the bridge to get from Crimea to Russia. Askenov said that instead of the bridge, trucks, and buses going from Crimea to Russia will use ferry service.
An official in Crimea said that the explosion was caused by “vandals from Ukraine.” Some Ukrainian officials were proud of what happened, but they didn’t directly say they were to blame. They even said that stamps will be made to remember the event. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said, “The reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows how terroristic it is.”
The bridge is important from a strategic point of view because it connects Russia’s Krasnodar region to the Crimean Peninsula. In 2014, Russia took the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, which was a move that was condemned by the rest of the world.
It is an important way for Crimea to get the things it needs every day and the things it needs for the military. In the last few months, dozens of Russian military convoys carrying vehicles, armor, and fuel have used the bridge.
If the Russian military can’t use the bridge, it will be harder for them to send supplies to their forces in southern Ukraine. This is especially true if the Ukrainians move south into the Kherson region, which is north of Crimea.
Russia used the railroads in Crimea to send supplies to its forces in Kherson. At the same time, long-range Ukrainian rockets have hit several rail hubs in both Crimea and Kherson.
Sergey Aksenov, who was put in charge of Crimea by Russia, said that after the explosion, “two spans of the roadbed of the part of the bridge from Krasnodar to Kerch collapsed” and that the fuel tanks on a train caught fire.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Telegram that based on what they know so far, the three people who died were probably the passengers of a car that was next to the blown-up truck.
The investigating panel said that at least two bodies, of a man and a woman, were found in the water and that their names were being found out.
The truck that blew up belonged to someone in Russia’s Krasnodar region, according to the records. Investigators are checking the owner’s home and trying to figure out where the truck was going, the investigative committee said.
The bridge goes over the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The Sea of Azov is where Mariupol and other important Ukrainian ports are located. For Russia, the bridge stands for Crimea’s physical “reunification” with the rest of Russia.
No more information has been given about when or what the commission will do.
RIA Novosti quoted Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov as saying, “There are no plans yet for when the Crimean bridge will be fixed.” A person in charge in Crimea said that “Ukrainian vandals” were to blame.
“Ukrainian vandals got their bloody hands on the Crimean bridge in some way. And now they have something to be proud of: in the 23 years they were doing business in Crimea, they never built anything interesting. But they were able to damage the Russian bridge’s roadbed “Vladimir Konstantinov, who is the head of the State Council of the Republic of Crimea, said.
“This is what the Kyiv regime and the Ukrainian state are all about… The cause of the accident will be looked into, and the damage will be fixed as soon as possible “he added.
CNN can’t check Konstantinov’s claim on its own.
Ukraine Responds To The Blast
Officials from Ukraine made fun of Russia about the explosion without directly admitting that Ukraine was behind the attack.
“Air defense of the Russian Federation, are you sleeping?” asked the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, along with a video showing a completely destroyed section of the road leading to the bridge.
“Illegal buildings in Russia are starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is easy to understand: if you build something explosive, it will eventually go off. And this is only the start, “David Arakhamia, the head of the parliamentary party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a member of Kyiv’s team that talks with Russia, said about the incident in a Telegram message.
Oleksiy Danilov, a high-ranking Ukrainian official, posted a video of the broken Kerch bridge along with a clip of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” which she did for President John F. Kennedy in 1962. On Friday, Putin turned 70.
The CEO of the Ukrainian Postal Service said Saturday that stamps will be made with pictures of the broken bridge.
“I won’t tell you to have a good day because it already is. The bridge at Kerch is finished, “Igor Smelyansky spoke for the government.
A senior member of the General Staff, Oleksii Hromov, said on Thursday that since September 21, Ukrainian troops had moved 55 kilometers to the northeast, taken control of 93 settlements, and more than 2,400 square kilometers.
Hromov seemed to be talking about gains made in the Kharkiv area before September 21, but they weren’t confirmed until after that date.
In an interview in August, a high-ranking member of the Ukrainian military said that the Kerch bridge was a fair target.
In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Dmytro Marchenko said, “This is a necessary step to stop them (Russia) from being able to send reserves and reinforce their troops from Russian territory.”
Ukraine Responds To The Blast
Officials from Ukraine made fun of Russia about the explosion without directly admitting that Ukraine was behind the attack.
“Air defense of the Russian Federation, are you sleeping?” asked the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook, along with a video showing a completely destroyed section of the road leading to the bridge.
“Illegal buildings in Russia are starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is easy to understand: if you build something explosive, it will eventually go off. And this is only the start, “David Arakhamia, the head of the parliamentary party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a member of Kyiv’s team that talks with Russia, said about the incident in a Telegram message.
Oleksiy Danilov, a high-ranking Ukrainian official, posted a video of the broken Kerch bridge along with a clip of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” which she did for President John F. Kennedy in 1962. On Friday, Putin turned 70.
The CEO of the Ukrainian Postal Service said Saturday that stamps will be made with pictures of the broken bridge.
“I won’t tell you to have a good day because it already is. The bridge at Kerch is finished, “Igor Smelyansky spoke for the government.
A senior member of the General Staff, Oleksii Hromov, said on Thursday that since September 21, Ukrainian troops had moved 55 kilometers to the northeast, taken control of 93 settlements, and more than 2,400 square kilometers.
Hromov seemed to be talking about gains made in the Kharkiv area before September 21, but they weren’t confirmed until after that date.
In an interview in August, a high-ranking member of the Ukrainian military said that the Kerch bridge was a fair target.
In an interview with RBC-Ukraine, Maj. Gen. Dmytro Marchenko said, “This is a necessary step to stop them (Russia) from being able to send reserves and reinforce their troops from Russian territory.”
In Eastern Ukraine, A Train Was Hit.
The adviser to Mariupol Mayor Petro Andrushenko said that on Saturday morning, a “powerful explosion” hit a cargo train in Ilovaisk, which is in the part of Donetsk that is controlled by Russia.
“It’s not just Crimea. Not just gas tanks. There is a freight train in Ilovaisk as well. Locals say they heard a powerful explosion and then another one at night. Both sides are making it hard for the occupiers to get supplies “Andrushenko said.
Pro-Russian authorities in the self-declared republic of Donetsk confirmed that the cargo train fire happened. On Saturday, they released a video showing the aftermath of the fire at a local train station.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said on Telegram that “Ukrainian militants” were responsible for the fire by firing shells into the area. CNN can’t check the claim on its own.
On Thursday, US President Joe Biden warned about the dangers of Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons, which came as his military continued to lose ground in Ukraine.
“For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of using a nuclear weapon if things keep going the way they are,” Biden said at a Democratic fundraiser in New York on Thursday night.
He also said, “I don’t think it’s possible to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon without causing Armageddon.”
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