Crimea bridge bombed
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of attacking the Crimea bridge, calling it an “act of terrorism”. The bridge connects Russia with its annexed Crimea.
Putin said the goal of Ukrainian intelligence forces was to destroy a vital part of Russia’s civilian infrastructure.
Putin made the remarks during a meeting with Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee.
Russian officials said three people were killed in the bridge explosion.
A truck exploded and the victim was in a nearby car, the official said.
“There is no doubt that this is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critical civilian infrastructure in Russia,” Putin said.
“The perpetrators and beneficiaries are the Ukrainian security services.”
Bastregin said Russia and some foreign nationals assisted in the attack.
He said investigators had determined that the truck they said exploded had passed through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and the Krasnodar region.
He has ordered an investigation into the incident that caused parts of the road to collapse.
Ukrainian officials have not said their military was behind the attack.
However, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, denied Putin’s allegations.
“There is only one terrorist state here,” and “the whole world knows who it is,” he wrote.
“Putin accuses Ukraine of being involved in terrorism? Even for Russia, it seems too cunning.”
image source,Reuters
Burnt marks were visible on the railway bridge on Saturday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to the incident in an evening speech on Saturday, saying: “Today is a good day, most of our country is sunny.”
“Unfortunately, Crimea is warm but cloudy,” he added.
Hours after the attack, Russian authorities reopened parts of the road on the bridge, but only to lighter-weight vehicles.
The rail section of the bridge, where the fuel tanker tank caught fire, has also reopened.
At 19 kilometers (12 miles) long, the bridge is the longest in Europe and serves as an important supply channel for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
Russia uses the bridge to transport military equipment, ammunition and personnel from Russia to battlefields in southern Ukraine.
In 2018, four years after Russia annexed Crimea, the bridge was opened to traffic by Putin himself.
analyze
BBCdiplomaticaffairsreporter Paul Adams
Security camera footage posted on social media showed a truck heading west across the bridge at the time of the explosion, allegedly from the Russian city of Krasnodar, an hour’s drive from the intersection.
The video showed a huge fireball erupting behind and to the side of the truck as it began to climb the elevated section of the bridge.
The truck bomb theory began to spread in Russian circles at a suspicious rate. It shows that the Kremlin tends to see this as an act of terrorism over other possibilities: such as a daring sabotage by Ukraine, which is worrying.
“I’ve seen a lot of large vehicle-mounted IEDs in my life,” a former British Army explosives expert told me. “It doesn’t look like it.”
A more plausible explanation, he said, is that there was a massive explosion under the bridge — possibly from some sort of secret maritime drone.
“Bridges are usually designed to resist downward loads on the deck and some degree of wind side loading,” he said. “Usually not against upward loads. I think the attack in Ukraine took advantage of that fact.”
Some observers noted that in another surveillance video, what looked like waves on the bow of a small boat appeared next to the pier moments before the explosion.