Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea a "terrorist act" carried out by Ukrainian special forces, Russian media outlets are reporting.
A video of the country's President during a meeting with Alexander Bastrykin, the chairmen of Russia's Investigative Committee, on Sunday captured Putin saying: "There’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure.”
Mr Bastrykin said he had opened a criminal case into an act of terrorism, and that early investigations had shown Ukrainian special services and citizens of Russia and other countries had taken part in the act, which Russian officials claim killed three people. He said investigations “have already established the route of the truck” that Russian authorities said set off a bomb and explosion on the bridge.
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According to Mr Bastrykin, the truck had been to Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, Krasnodar (a region in southern Russia) and other places. The Kerch Bridge partially collapsed after an explosion in the early hours of Saturday morning, October 8, the day after President Putin's 70th birthday.
The bridge linked Russia to the Crimean peninsula, and was a key supply route for the Kremlin's war efforts in Southern Ukraine. Russian authorities say a truck bomb caused the blast, which the Investigative Committee sat was owned by a resident of the Krasnodar region. Investigators arrived at his home and have been looking at the truck's route and details around the vehicle.
According to Russia's Investigative Committee, a man and a woman who were riding in a vehicle across the bridge were killed by the explosion and their bodies were recovered. No details on the third victim, or the drive of the truck, have been released. Two sections of the bridge partially collapsed, after the explosion set seven railway carriages carrying fuel alight.
The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament accused Ukraine of being behind the explosion, though Moscow did not apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge and some lauded the destruction, but the parliamentary leader of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party stopped short of claiming Kyiv was responsible.
He did appear to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea. David Arakhamia, leader of the Servant of the People party, wrote on Telegram: “Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode."
The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, tweeted a video with the Kerch Bridge on fire alongside Marilyn Monroe singing her famous Happy Birthday, Mr President. Russian officials have called for retaliation against Ukraine since the attack.
Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Russian Communist Party, which is nominally in the opposition but votes in line with Kremlin wishes in parliament, said the “terror attack” should serve as a wake-up call. He added: “The long-overdue measures haven’t been taken yet, the special operation must be turned into a counterterrorist operation.”
Sergei Mironov, head of the Just Russia faction in parliament, said Moscow should respond by attacking key Ukrainian infrastructure including power plants, bridges and railways.
Kerch Bridge, a 12-mile route across the Kerch Strait which links the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, opened in 2018 and is the longest in Europe. The £3.2 billion project is a tangible symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and has provided an essential link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
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