Mystery blast destroys part of strategic bridge linking Russia and Crimea
A mysteriously powerful blast brought down part of a strategic bridge linking Russia and the Crimea peninsula Saturday, damaging Vladimir Putin’s major military supply artery to his forces in southern Ukraine.
Three people were killed when the early-morning explosion on the 12-mile Kerch bridge caused a partial roadway collapse, said Russian authorities, who claimed that a truck bomb caused the extensive damage.
But footage of the incident called the Russian version of events into question, with some skeptics suggesting a boat in the waters under the span or a drone carrying explosives as the cause.
Dramatic video appeared to show a “wave” beneath the bridge just before the explosion set off an enormous fireball, the Daily Mail reported — sparking theories that Ukrainian special services had launched a daring operation to bring the span down.
The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee insisted a freight truck on one portion of the bi-level span exploded as it was passing near a supply train carrying fuel to the peninsula. The truck blast caused seven fuel tanker wagons to catch fire at 6:07 a.m. local time.
Thick black smoke billowed up from a visible fire on the bridge, and multiple rail cars on a train crossing the center of span were clearly ablaze after the explosion. Sections of the portion of the crossing used by cars on the outside section of the bridge had collapsed into the water. Other images showed the roadway littered with debris.
Security analyst Michael Clarke called Russia’s truck-bomb claim “ridiculous.”
“If it was an explosion, it would have gone upwards, not come from underneath,” Clarke told Sky News. “And you can’t get that much stuff in a vehicle going over a bridge. Bridges are designed to withstand accidents of that sort.”
Clarke speculated that the damage could only have been done by “a missile, which would be a missile heavier than the Ukrainian forces are supposed to have, or a special forces operation to sabotage the bridge with explosives underneath. In which case they will be making Hollywood films about this for years to come.”
Another explosives expert ruled out the missile theory.
“The lack of obvious blast / fragmentation damage on the road surface suggests that an air-delivered weapon was not used,” the unnamed expert told the BBC.
He said it was possible that “a well-planned attack from below may have been the cause.”
“I suspect explosives on the road bridge and train deck were initiated near simultaneously using coded radio command,” he added.
The massive blast, coming a day after Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday, targeted a span that opened with great fanfare in 2018, four years after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials did not claim responsibility for the attack, but celebrated it online.
“Good morning!” Defense Secretary Oleksiy Danilov tweeted, with a video of the bridge explosion sharing a split screen with a video clip of Marilyn Monroe singing, “Happy Birthday, Mr. President.”
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry tweeted, “The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge – two notorious symbols of Russian power in Ukranian Crimea – have gone down. What’s next in lines, Russkies?”
The cruiser, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, was destroyed by Ukraine in May.
The road bridge was still intact in one direction, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian governor of Crimea, said on social media. Traffic was suspended while the damage was assessed, but cars began to traverse the undamaged section by late Saturday.
The bridge is not only a crucial supply route for Russian forces who are fighting in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, but also for civilians living in Crimea.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser posted a message on Twitter saying the incident was just “the beginning” but stopped short of saying Ukrainian forces were responsible for the blast.
“Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything that is stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak shortly after the explosion.
In a later post, he suggested the culprit was the Russian FSB, the security police that succeeded the Soviet KGB. “It is still not clear who blew up the bridge?” he added. “Let me remind you that the truck arrived from the Russian Federation.”
He suggested the blast would provide cover for the Russian military’s “future South loss.”
President Volodymr Zelensky was active on social media Saturday, including a post about the southern region of Zaporozhia that said in part, “Not one centimeter of our land will be controlled by the invaders,” but he notably did not mention the bridge explosion.
Putin has instructed the government to create a state commission to investigate the incident, TASS news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Interfax quoted the chairman of the Crimean republic’s State Council, Vladimir Konstantinov, as saying that “Ukrainian vandals managed to reach for the Crimean bridge with their bloody hands.”
