One track released
According to Moscow, parts of the Crimean bridge are again passable for cars
07/18/2023 01:18 am
One section has split open, the roadway slopes significantly – damage to the Crimean Bridge is significant after last night’s explosion. First of all, it is said from Moscow that cars will not be able to drive here for weeks. Now the connection should be partly free again.
According to Russian information, one lane on the Crimean Bridge has been reopened to traffic. “Car traffic on the Crimean bridge has been restored in the far right lane in the opposite direction to the usual traffic,” writes Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Chusnullin on his Telegram channel.
The government in Moscow had previously announced that the strategically important bridge between the Crimean peninsula and mainland Russia would remain suspended until mid-September. Only then should traffic in one direction be opened again. That’s what Chusnullin said in a televised conversation with President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Both directions will be passable again by November 1st.
Putin’s prestige project was damaged by explosions during the night, the second such attack since the beginning of the Ukraine war. According to Russian sources, two people died. Putin blamed Ukraine and announced retaliation.
The automobile and railway bridge spans the strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. According to Russian information, the train route was not damaged in the attack. Russia uses the bridge to deliver a large part of the supplies for its troops in the southern Ukrainian region of Cherson, which they largely occupy. Video shared by local media showed a section of road split in two, leaning to one side.
Putin personally inaugurated the bridge in 2018, four years after Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula. On Monday he spoke on television about a senseless and cruel act by the government in Kiev. The bridge had not been used to supply the armed forces for months. The Department of Defense is preparing proposals for a response.
A State Department spokeswoman said earlier that help for the attack had come from the United States and Britain. “The attack on the Crimean bridge today was perpetrated by the regime in Kiev. This regime is a terrorist one and has all the hallmarks of an internationally organized criminal gang.”
There were also hints from Ukraine itself that Ukraine could be behind it. After the military initially said it could be a provocation by Russia, three Ukrainian media reported that the incident was caused by the Ukrainian domestic secret service SBU and the navy. All three refer to at least one unspecified insider. Drones were used. A spokesman for the SBU referred to the news service RBC Ukraine to earlier statements by SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk that in a war it is justified to cut off enemy supply routes.
In October 2022 there was a first explosion on the bridge, which was largely destroyed. At that time, too, Russia blamed Ukraine. She only indirectly admitted this months later. After the partial repairs, Putin drove across the 19-kilometer bridge in a Mercedes in December.