In a television appearance Monday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had struck military and infrastructure targets across Ukraine following the Crimea bridge blast on Saturday.
Putin threatened further “harsh” responses that correspond “to the level of threat to the Russian Federation, have no doubt about it,” while accusing Kyiv of “terrorism.”
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack on the Kerch bridge, a key link between the Russian mainland and Crimea, which Moscow annexed illegally in 2014.
Putin listed a catalogue of alleged acts of “terrorism” by what he called the “Kyiv regime” at a Russian Security Council meeting on Monday, accusing “Ukrainian special services” of the “sabotage act on the Crimean bridge.”
He went through a list of what he called acts of terrorism including “terrorist shelling of the citizen towns in Donbas for over eight years,” and alleged acts of terrorism against Russian energy infrastructure, including electric power facilities, the gas transportation infrastructure and “an attempt to undermine one of the sections of the Turkish Stream gas transportation system.”
He warned of a harsh response that corresponds to the level of threat toward the Russian Federation in case of further “acts of terrorism.”
More on the explosion: An explosion early Saturday severely damaged parts of the Crimean bridge, which is a road and rail link between the peninsula and the Russian Federation. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the blast on the enormous 19-kilometer (about 12-mile) bridge, which was was opened by Putin in 2018. Ukrainian reaction to the explosion has been gleeful and triumphant.
