Ukraine poked the Russian bear on Saturday by blowing up the Kerch Bridge from Russia to Crimea.
According to Russian news agency Tass, an explosion occurred in early Saturday morning on one of Putin’s prestige projects and Europe’s longest bridge, which connects Russia and Crimea.
“An object believed to be a fuel storage tank has caught fire on the Crimean Bridge, but the viaduct’s navigable arches sustained no damage, an aide to the head of Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, said on Saturday,” according to the news outlet.
“According to preliminary information, a fuel storage tank is on fire… Navigable arches were not damaged. It is too early to speak about causes and consequences. Work to extinguish the blaze is underway,” Kryuchkov wrote in his Telegram channel.
Crimean Bridge, also known as Kerch Strait Bridge or Kerch Bridge, is a pair of parallel bridges, one road, one rail, spanning the Kerch Strait between the Taman Peninsula of Krasnodar Krai in Russia and the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in Ukraine.
After annexing Crimea at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia built the bridge. It is the longest bridge ever constructed in Russia, at 19 kilometers (12 miles), and the longest bridge in all of Europe.
Besides transportation, Russia’s motivation for building the bridge was to legitimize its territorial claims in Crimea.
Russia later blamed the blast on a fuel truck explosion.
The Ukrainian Defense Department later threatened more attacks on Russia’s infrastructure following the blast.
On Monday Russia responded.
Ukraine was hit by over 70 Russian missile attacks.
A Kyiv transformer station was hit by a Russian missile.
This looks really bad. A park in Kyiv.
Putin is warning of more attacks.
NBC News reported:
Russia unleashed a barrage of deadly attacks on cities across Ukraine on Monday, hitting the heart of the country’s capital as part of a wave of strikes against civilians and infrastructure not seen since the very earliest days of the war.
From Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the northeast, missiles tore through rush hour traffic and into energy facilities, in retaliation for a blast that damaged a key bridge to the annexed Crimean Peninsula over the weekend.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in a televised address that his military had launched a series of strikes on Ukraine’s “energy, military command and communications facilities,” telling his security council it was revenge for what he called Kyiv’s long track record of “terrorist” actions, including the bridge blast.