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Tag: Bridges

  • Moscow rushes to repair Crimean bridge after fiery explosion

    Moscow rushes to repair Crimean bridge after fiery explosion

    Russia is rushing to repair the bridge connecting occupied Crimea to Russia after a major blast on Saturday, in an attempt to downplay the attack.

    Suburban train lines are scheduled to start running again on the Kerch Bridge as of 7 p.m. local time, according to a message from the Russian Transport Ministry posted on Telegram Sunday. Long-distance freight and passenger trains on the bridge already “are moving according to the standard schedule,” the ministry said.

    The fiery explosion Saturday morning marked a huge symbolic blow against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who grabbed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and started building the bridge connecting the Ukrainian peninsula to Russia that same year.

    “This incident will likely touch President Putin closely,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in analysis published on Sunday, since the blast happened “hours after his 70th birthday” and his childhood friend Arkady Rotenberg built the bridge.

    Putin tightened security for the bridge after Saturday’s explosion, and he ordered a government commission to investigate the damage. The initial report from Moscow’s inspection of the bridge is due later Sunday.

    Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry appeared to be downplaying the blow as it tweeted a video of the Kerch Bridge with traffic flowing. Despite Moscow’s message of business as usual, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said that transport “capacity will be seriously degraded” on the bridge.

    “The extent of damage to the rail crossing is uncertain, but any serious disruption to its capacity will highly likely have a significant impact on Russia’s already strained ability to sustain its forces in southern Ukraine,” the U.K. ministry said.

    Russia’s Ministry of Transport wrote on Telegram Sunday that vehicles containing perishable goods would be given priority on ferries crossing the Kerch Strait.

    The Ukrainian government so far hasn’t been commenting about the origins of the apparent bombing. Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzheppar posted a picture of the collapsed bridge section on Saturday with the hashtag #CrimeaIsUkraine.

    Over the past few weeks, Ukraine has been leading a counteroffensive against Russia and regaining territory and towns held by Moscow. Kyiv is now asking for more Western weapons, including air defense systems. The Kremlin signalled on Sunday that if the West were to provide Ukraine with heavier long-distance arms, Russia would retaliate.

    “Deliveries of long-range or more powerful weapons to Kyiv” would cross Russia’s “red lines,” Russian foreign affairs official Aleksey Polishchuk told the country’s state-owned news agency TASS on Sunday.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba renewed the call for additional defensive systems on Sunday, after at least 17 people were reported killed overnight by Russian shelling on the city of Zaporizhzhia.

    “Russia continues its missile terror against civilians in Zaporizhzhia,” Kuleba said in a tweet. “We urgently need more modern air and missile defense systems to save innocent lives. I urge partners to speed up deliveries.”

    Sarah Anne Aarup

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  • Putin backers urge strong retaliation for Kerch Bridge blast

    Putin backers urge strong retaliation for Kerch Bridge blast

    KYIV — The fiery blast on the Kerch Bridge on Saturday triggered a chorus of calls for brutal retaliation against Ukraine among Russian public figures who support President Vladimir Putin. 

    The calls increase political pressure on Putin, who said in September that Moscow is ready to use “all available means” to protect the country and its people “if our country is threatened.”  
     
    “This is not a bluff,” Putin added, speaking during the announcement of the mobilization of 300,000 reservists for the war on Ukraine. 

    His statement triggered speculation among Ukraine’s Western backers about a possible deployment of tactical nuclear weapons against Ukrainian troops in case Kyiv is successful in its counteroffensive in four Ukrainian territories formally annexed by the Kremlin, or if Ukraine attempts to win Crimea back. Kyiv hasn’t claimed responsibility for the bridge explosion. 

    Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected politician and former parliamentarian with Putin’s United Russia party, believes that “the terrorist attack” on the Kerch Bridge is evidence that “the U.S. and its Ukrainian proxy regime will move the red line further and further.”  

    “No response from Russia? Even further. And again? Even further,” he wrote on social media, demanding a tough response from Moscow. 

    Konstantin Dolgov, a member of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, also branded the explosion “a terrorist attack” and “another sinister manifestation of the terrorist nature of the puppet Kyiv regime.”

    Referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Dolgov said: “Terrorists must be treated unequivocally!” 

    Rodion Miroshnik, who represented in Moscow until recently the Russia-backed Luhansk People’s Republic, wrote on social media that “undamaged Ukrainian bridges across the Dnieper river look ridiculous against the backdrop of a blazing Crimean bridge.” 

    The damage to the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia with Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, not only poses a problem to Russia’s supplies of manpower and weapons to its units in southern Ukraine. It is also a serious humiliation for Putin personally, having happened on the morning after his 70th birthday. 

    The explosion was also a slap in the face to propagandists in Russia’s state-controlled media, who have regularly used the bridge as a symbol of Russia’s successful annexation of Ukrainian territory. 

    Television journalist Vladimir Solovyov, sanctioned earlier this year by the EU for his propaganda activities, wrote in his Telegram channel: “It’s time to respond. By all means available.”  

    He said that Ukraine “must be immersed in dark times,” and urged Russia to destroy bridges, dams, railways, thermal power plants and other infrastructure facilities in Ukraine. According to international law, such deliberate destruction would be a war crime. The U.N. already said last month that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine including the bombings of civil areas and summary executions.

    Andrei Medvedev, a prominent television journalist and a vice speaker of the Moscow city council, said that “what will happen to us [Russia] depends, among other things, on the reaction [of the authorities] to today’s events.” 

    Sergei Kuznetsov

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  • Blast on Russia bridge to Crimea threatens Moscow supply route

    Blast on Russia bridge to Crimea threatens Moscow supply route

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    KYIV — The Kerch bridge in Crimea was partially destroyed by an explosion Saturday morning, in a strategic and symbolic blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign against Ukraine.

    The damage to the bridge, which comes as Ukrainian advances continue to reclaim occupied territories from Moscow’s forces, endangers a crucial route for Russian military supplies to support its forces in southern Ukraine.

    Two spans of the road portion of the bridge collapsed as a result of “an accident,” according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed head of the Crimea administration. “Fuel tanks have also caught fire,” Aksyonov said in a post on social media. 

    Russia’s National Anti-Terrorist Committee said that a truck was blown up on the bridge, according to Russian media. As a result of the blast, “a partial collapse” of two spans occurred, it said. Russia’s Investigative Committee said three people were killed in the explosion, according to media reports.

    According to videos and photos posted Saturday morning by eyewitnesses, several fuel tankers were on fire on the rail part of the bridge, while at least one road span had partially collapsed into the waters of the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. 

    “As soon as the fire is extinguished, it will be possible to assess damage to the bridge and pillars, and it will be possible to talk about the timing of the restoration of traffic,” Aksyonov said. 

    The head of the Russian-installed regional parliament in Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, blamed the damage to the bridge on “Ukrainian vandals,” according to Russian media.

    Kyiv hasn’t claim responsibility for the damage to the bridge, but Ukrainian officials celebrated the blast on social media. Referring to a flagship Russian vessel sunk by Kyiv earlier this year, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense tweeted: “The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge – two notorious symbols of Russian power in Ukrainian Crimea – have gone down. What’s next in line, russkies?”

    The Kerch bridge, which connects Crimea with the Russian mainland, was opened personally by Putin with much fanfare in 2018, after Moscow seized the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. The construction of the bridge was slammed by both Kyiv and its Western backers as illegal at the time. 

    Since the start of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine in late February, the bridge has been crucially important for the transfer of manpower, weapons and fuel to Russian units fighting Ukrainian troops in southern Ukraine. 

    Putin on Saturday ordered a government commission to investigate “the emergency on the Crimean bridge” and officials have been dispatched to the scene, Russian media reported, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    According to Aksyonov, ferry service will start operating on Saturday in place of the damaged bridge.

    Over the past months, Ukrainian officials have repeatedly declared Kyiv’s plans to target the Crimea bridge. In April, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said in a radio interview that the bridge will “definitely” be hit, if Kyiv gets an opportunity. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded Danilov’s statement as “announcing a possible terrorist attack.” 

    After the partial collapse of the Kerch bridge Saturday morning, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a tweet that “everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.”

    Zelenskyy, in an address Friday night, said Ukraine has taken back more than 2,400 square kilometers of its territory occupied by Russia. “This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometers of territory in the east of our country and 29 settlements,” Zelenskyy said.

    Sergei Kuznetsov

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