Strategically important bottleneck
Crimean bridge closed after heavy explosion
10/08/2022 10:31 am
A serious incident occurs on the bridge near Kerch, which connects Crimea and mainland Russia. A major fire paralyzes traffic on the longest structure in Europe. Russian President Putin personally inaugurated the bridge in 2018.
A heavy explosion occurred early in the morning on the bridge that connects the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland. The exact cause of the incident is still unclear. According to the Russian authorities, a car bomb exploded. The detonation triggered a major fire on the parallel railway bridge. At the time of the incident, there was a freight train with tank wagons that had apparently been loaded with fuel.
The first pictures from Russian sources show massive damage: parts of the roadway structure collapsed, the rail connection seems at least blocked by the partially burned out train. The Crimean Bridge is of enormous strategic importance for the Russian invasion of Ukraine: large parts of the military supplies for Crimea and the front in southern Ukraine run across the bridge. Russian President Vladimir Putin personally opened the Crimean Bridge in 2018. The controversial is considered a symbol of Russia’s claim to power in Crimea.
How exactly the explosion could have happened is still unclear: the Russian authorities ruled out the obvious possibility of a Ukrainian air strike early on. At 6:07 a.m. (Kerch local time), a vehicle exploded on the bridge, the national anti-terrorist committee in Moscow announced hours after the incident. circulating on the web Images from surveillance cameras, showing a massive explosion at the scene. Moscow said the detonation set fire to seven tanks on a freight train en route to the Crimean peninsula. Damage was caused to the roadway, and traffic has been interrupted since then, according to the authorities. The government in Simferopol announced that a ferry connection was being examined.
Apparently, several wagons with fuel burned out completely, as could be seen in the first photos. A section in the Kerch Strait a few hundred meters south-east of the arch bridge, which can be seen from afar, is affected. A four-lane highway runs across the Kerch Bridge on the northern side. The rail connection is double track. Both routes are mostly made of steel and concrete.
“There are no injuries for the time being,” Crimean leadership adviser Oleg Kryuchkov said, according to Russian media. According to Kryuchkov, the fire is said to have started in a container at the end of a freight train. However, the pictures of the explosion circulating on the Internet lead to the conclusion that the massive damage is likely to be due to the explosion of a truck on the road bridge. The truck was driving from the Russian side in the direction of Crimea.
Is there a retaliatory strike from Moscow?
In the capital, Kyiv, there were repeated threats to fire on the bridge between the peninsula and the Russian mainland, which Kremlin chief Putin personally inaugurated in 2018. In recent weeks, there have been several explosions in Russian-occupied Crimea, causing serious damage. Military bases and air force bases were hit the hardest.
Observers on both sides assume that these earlier attacks may have been targeted Ukrainian airstrikes. According to Western observers, the Russian Crimean bridge has so far been beyond the range of Ukrainian missiles. Russia has repeatedly warned against shelling the bridge – a key strategic structure – and has threatened to target command centers in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv if it does.
The Ukrainian leadership has been demanding longer-range heavy weapons from the West for months. With long-range precision missiles, it was said, the Ukrainians could then also destroy the Crimean bridge and thus prevent Russian supplies to the peninsula. At 19 kilometers long, the Crimean Bridge is the longest structure in Europe. Passenger trains have been running since the end of 2019, freight trains since summer 2020.
The spokeswoman for the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny shared a video of the fire and the damage on social networks – and commented that it was probably a present for Putin’s 70th birthday. The head of the Kremlin celebrated the anniversary on Friday in his hometown of St. Petersburg