Early on Saturday, a massive explosion shook a crucial bridge connecting Russia and the Crimean peninsula, knocking down portions of the road and igniting fuel tanker wagons on a train.
The Kerch Bridge, which has served as a reminder of President Vladimir Putin‘s illegitimate takeover of Crimea in 2014, was partially demolished by the incident, reportedly caused by a truck being “blown up,” according to a statement from Russia’s Investigative Committee.
The statement added that two portions of the road bridge had partially collapsed but that the arch spanning the Kerch Strait, the waterway through which ships travel between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea, had not been harmed. This “resulted in the ignition of seven fuel tanks of a train heading towards the Crimean Peninsula.”
In a later announcement, the committee claimed that the explosion had claimed the lives of three people. The bodies of a woman and a man had also been discovered in the water, it was said. The third victim was left out of the conversation.
Social media images of the bridge appeared to show that part of the road had collapsed into the lake below and that the rail car above was engulfed in flames and smoke.
The Russian governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, later stated on social media that although traffic was paused while the damage was being evaluated, the road bridge was still intact in one direction. Later on, he declared that repairs would start right away.
According to information from the Interfax news agency and a quote from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Putin has ordered the government to establish a state commission to look into the incident. When asked if there were any forecasts for how long it would take to fix the bridge, he said, “No.”
Without formally taking credit for the explosion, Ukrainian officials have posted jubilant comments about it on social media.
In a message on his Twitter account, Mykhailo Podolyak, a counsellor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated that it was only “the beginning.”
“Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything that is stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” he wrote.
In the meantime, the Ukrainian Security Service wrote on Telegram that the bridge was “beautifully burning.”
The explosion on Europe’s longest bridge, which cost $3.6 billion and was ceremoniously opened by Putin in May 2018, four years after the Russian takeover of Crimea, infuriated Russian MPs, who expressed their outrage. He took the helm of a truck and guided a line of cars through it.
A military strategist and former major general in the Australian Army, Mick Ryan, told NBC News on Saturday, “Politically, it’s a massive kick in the guts for Putin the day after his birthday.”
Ryan added that “the bridge was “a symbol of [Putin’s] takeover of Crimea, and it’s a symbol that Ukrainians intend to take it back.”
