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.
Following the attack on Saturday, the Ukrainian Department of Defense threatened more attacks on Russia.
On Wednesday the Russian Spy Agency FSB announced they had identified the team behind the bombing. They also revealed the route the truck traveled from Ukraine, through Bulgaria, Armenia and Georgia before blowing up on the Russian bridge to Crimea.
Via The Daily Mail.
The FSB has arrested eight people over the Crimean bridge attack while revealing an X-ray of what it says was the bomb that caused the blast.
Moscow’s spies say the men – five Russians and three people from Ukraine and Armenia – worked with a Ukrainian agent named ‘Ivan Ivanovic’ to ship the 23-ton device through four countries over two months before it detonated on the bridge.
They say the bomb – disguised as industrial plastic sheeting – began its journey in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, before going via Bulgaria to Armenia, then across Georgia and into Russia before it was diverted to Simferopol, in Crimea.
At some point a truck carrying the device was X-rayed. The FSB says accompanying paperwork was changed at least twice to conceal its origins, under the direct orders of Ukrainian security service chief Kirill Budanov.
Ukraine has called the FSB’s allegations ‘nonsense’ and has not claimed responsibility for the blast, which partially crippled the main road and rail link between Russia and occupied Crimea.
Map route of Ukrainian bomb to Crimea – via FSB (Daily Mail)