A major bridge that connects Russia and Crimea is struck by a huge explosion.
Images from the Kerch Bridge, which Vladimir Putin opened in 2018, show burned-out train cars and fallen road segments. The Kerch Bridge is a vital supply route for Russian military forces.
The Kerch bridge, which connects Russia and Crimea, has been severely damaged by a massive explosion. The Kerch bridge is a hated sign of Vladimir Putin’s vanity project and the Kremlin’s takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula.
At least two train cars could be seen being burned by a fiercely raging fire that was followed by a huge column of black smoke in images taken from the bridge. The Kerch Strait was also entered by one side of the parallel road bridge.
A train was crossing the bridge when the explosion happened on Saturday shortly before 6 a.m., and witnesses stated they could hear it from kilometers away.
A presidential adviser for Ukraine named Mykhailo Podolyak appeared to blame Kyiv in a tweet that read: “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning.” It was not immediately clear what set it off. Everyone who is a part of the Russian occupation must be expelled, everything that is illegal must be destroyed, and everything that has been stolen must be returned to Ukraine.
Because the damage to the road segment of the bridge appeared to have been completely demolished with no obvious sign of a missile impact in the first photos to surface, some have hypothesized that the attack on the bridge may have been a stunning act of sabotage.
For Russian forces in the Crimea and the southern regions of Ukraine that Russia has occupied, the bridge provides a crucial logistical supply line. It has a great deal of significance for Russia. Because of the damage to the railway line, Russian soldiers in the south now only have one train supply route between Krasnodar and Melitopol, and that line is also exposed to Ukrainian attacks.
The bridge explosion occurred the day after Putin celebrated his 70th birthday and as criticism of Putin’s leadership of the war in Ukraine in Russia has risen recently as a result of several increasingly serious defeats on the front line.
Stories of Crimean villagers rushing to petrol stations out of fear of gasoline shortages emerged shortly after the tragedy.
Although a fuel truck was reportedly involved, official Russian sources, like in previous strikes in Crimea, were vague regarding the explosion’s cause. According to Oleg Kryuchkov, a counselor to the Russian occupation authority in charge of the Crimea, preliminary evidence indicates that a gasoline tank [railroad] car caught fire at one of the sections of the Crimean bridge; nonetheless, the shipping arches remained unscathed.
One of the bridge sections has a cistern carriage that is blazing with fuel, according to a different authority chosen by Moscow. Shipping arches remain unchanged. To talk about causes and effects now would be premature. Workers are putting out the fire.
The train was stopped on the bridge, and video taken from the road crossing appeared to show numerous railroad vehicles traveling the length of the train with severe fires burning in them.
The alleged video footage shot at the moment of the explosion also seemed to reflect a planned attack employing heavy explosives.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/crimea-kerch-bridge-explosions-russia-ukraine
Photo, video: https://russiavsworld.org/a-huge-explosion-destroys-the-bridge-connecting-crimea-to-russia/
