Europe 1 with AFP
modified to
7:14 p.m., October 08, 2022
The Crimean Bridge, a key and symbolic infrastructure linking Russia to the peninsula annexed in 2014 to the detriment of Ukraine, was partially destroyed on Saturday by a huge explosion attributed by Moscow to a truck bomb. CCTV footage shared on social media showed a powerful explosion as several vehicles drove across the bridge, including a truck that Russian authorities suspect was the source of the blast. On other shots, we can see a convoy of tank cars in flames on the railway part of the bridge, and several sections of one of the two collapsed road lanes.
According to investigators, the attack which took place early in the morning killed three people: the driver of the truck and two people – a man and a woman – who were in a car just nearby when the explosion took place and whose bodies were lifted from the waters. The Crimean authorities announced in the afternoon that traffic had resumed for cars and buses on the only road on the bridge that remained intact, “with full inspection procedures”. The trucks will make the crossing on ferries and rail traffic has been restored in the evening.
The Investigative Committee said it had established the identity of the owner of the truck bomb, a resident of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, and that investigations were underway. This bridge, built at great expense on the orders of Vladimir Putin to connect the annexed peninsula to Russian territory, is used in particular to transport military equipment from the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. If Ukraine is behind the fire and explosion on the Crimean Bridge, the fact that such crucial infrastructure so far from the front could be damaged by Ukrainian forces would be a snub for Moscow.
An act of “terrorist nature” for Russia
If Ukraine has not explicitly acknowledged its responsibility for this attack, its officials have multiplied mocking and ironic comments, the Ukrainian post office even announcing that it is preparing a stamp to celebrate the occasion and has the drawing already ready. “Crimea. The bridge. The beginning. Everything that is illegal must be destroyed, everything that has been stolen must be returned to Ukraine”, commented on Twitter Mikhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
These reactions prompted the spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy, Maria Zakharova, to see it as a sign of the “terrorist nature” of the Ukrainian authorities. The Russian army, in difficulty on the Kherson front in southern Ukraine, assured that the supply of its troops was not threatened. “The supply (…) is carried out continuously and completely, along a land corridor and partially by sea,” she announced.
At the end of the day, the Ukrainian presidency nevertheless affirmed that the explosion on the Crimean bridge suggested a “Russian track”.
Ukraine has struck several bridges in the Kherson region in recent months to disrupt Russian supplies, as well as military bases in Crimea, attacks for which it did not admit responsibility until months later. If Moscow has for the moment refrained from directly accusing Ukraine for the explosion on the Crimean bridge, the head of the regional parliament installed by Russia, Vladimir Konstantinov denounced a coup “by the Ukrainian vandals”.
The leader of the peninsula, Sergei Aksionov tried to reassure his constituents by saying that Crimea had reserves of fuel for one month and food for two months. According to him, the repair work will begin “almost today”. According to an official of the Russian occupation in the Ukrainian region of Kherson, neighboring Crimea, Kirill Stremoussov, the repairs could take “two months”.
Russian retaliation?
Russia has always maintained that the bridge is safe despite fighting in Ukraine, but has in the past threatened kyiv with reprisals if Ukrainian forces were to attack this or other infrastructure in Crimea. Russian MP Oleg Morozov, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency, called on Saturday for an “adequate” response. “Otherwise, this type of terrorist attack will multiply,” he said. Since early September, Russian forces have been forced to retreat at many points on the front. In particular, they were forced to withdraw from the Kharkiv region (north-east) and to retreat to that of Kherson.
Faced with a galvanized Ukrainian army strong in Western arms supplies, Vladimir Putin decreed at the end of September the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions although Moscow only partially controls them. The only battlefield where Russian forces currently have the advantage is around the city of Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine.
A sign of discontent within the Russian elite over the conduct of operations, Moscow announced on Saturday that it had appointed a new man at the head of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, 55.