Putin blames Kyiv for attack on strategic Crimea bridge

“There is no such thing as a doubt that the assault was aimed toward destroying vital civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation,” Putin stated in a video launched by the Kremlin. The 12-mile lengthy span, whereas utilized by civilians, can also be a vital navy logistics route for Russia’s armed forces, the one direct street and rail route from mainland Russia to Crimea.

The incident despatched shock waves throughout the area, puncturing Kremlin assurances in regards to the bridge’s invincibility and compounding the challenges Russia faces in holding again a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has recovered occupied areas within the nation’s south and east.

Whereas Russian officers stated that restricted street and rail visitors would proceed, substantial harm to the bridge posed a right away logistics problem for Moscow’s navy offensive. Putin personally inaugurated the bridge in 2018, in a step designed to solidify Russia’s grip on the peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014.

Whereas the Ukrainian authorities didn’t publicly declare accountability for the incident, officers in Kyiv sought to make use of the blast as proof of its capability to realize a battlefield victory towards Russia’s bigger, better-armed navy, a prospect dismissed by many Western officers only some months in the past.

A Ukrainian official informed The Washington Submit on Saturday that Ukraine’s particular providers had been behind the explosion, which Russian authorities stated occurred when a truck exploded, igniting gasoline tanks on a passing practice.

Putin’s bridge of desires explodes in flames

Talking within the video with Putin, Alexander Bastrykin, the pinnacle of Russia’s Investigative Committee, stated the truck within the incident, which he stated additionally concerned Russian and different nationals, got here from Bulgaria by way of Georgia and into Russia earlier than being pushed towards Crimea.

Ukrainian officers dismissed the Russian statements, as a substitute condemning Russia for in a single day missile strikes that authorities stated killed at the least 14 individuals and injured at the least 70, together with 11 youngsters, within the Ukrainian metropolis of Zaporizhzhia. After the assault, officers posted images of {a partially} destroyed residence constructing, the place the central part had collapsed right into a pile of rubble.

“Putin accuses Ukraine of terrorism? Sounds too cynical even for Russia,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Twitter. “There is just one terrorist state right here and the entire world is aware of who it’s.”

Russia has repeatedly struck civilian targets since its Feb. 24 invasion, together with hospitals, colleges, residence buildings and railway stations.

In Zaporizhzhia, at the least eight individuals had been pulled from the particles after the assault, Oleksandr Starukh, governor of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, stated Sunday. Rescue efforts had been ongoing.

The destruction highlighted the potential for Russian retaliation for the bridge incident, and the continued vulnerability of Ukrainian cities regardless of the large shipments of weapons supplied by america and European nations in latest months.

Ukrainian International Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated the Zaporizhzhia assault supplied additional proof that Ukraine’s backers ought to accelerate that supply. “We urgently want extra trendy air and missile protection techniques to avoid wasting harmless lives,” he stated on Twitter.

Officers in Kyiv hope that the bridge incident, no matter its trigger, will present further gasoline to their marketing campaign to draw expanded assist from the West, together with longer-range missiles and tanks, and in flip persuade Russian troops and the Russian public that the battle is a misplaced trigger.

Simon Schlegel, a Ukraine knowledgeable with the Worldwide Disaster Group, stated freeway routes throughout Russian-controlled territory to the strategic metropolis of Kherson, which Russian is predicted to defend zealously, weren’t a super substitute for the Crimean bridge as a result of they’re nearer to Ukrainian navy positions.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian protection minister who now serves as an adviser to the Zelensky authorities, stated the psychological influence of the bridge incident could also be better than even the ensuing logistical challenges for Russia.

“It destroys the belief from the Russian navy, the Russian authorities and even usually Russian individuals of their incapability to handle dangers and incapability to guard,” he stated. “And that’s vastly essential.”

Michael Carpenter, U.S. ambassador to the Group for Safety and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Zaporizhzhia assault “barbaric. … We’ll need to maintain reaching deeper,” he stated on Twitter. “Extra navy help, extra help, extra sanctions.”

Russian authorities sought to telegraph normalcy following the bridge blast, regardless of what seemed to be critical harm to the construction.

In a message on his Telegram channel, Sergei Aksyonov, head of Crimea area, confirmed a photograph of an undisturbed part of the bridge and stated that officers had been working to regularize transport between Crimea and Russia’s Krasnodar area. He stated regular railway providers had resumed however that solely vehicles had been passing on the bridge for now, whereas buses and heavy automobiles had been touring by ferry.

Russia’s transport ministry reported on Sunday that passenger and freight trains had been operating recurrently throughout the bridge by Sunday morning. It stated commuter rail service would resume that night, in response to Interfax.

It was not clear whether or not truck-borne explosives or one thing else brought on the incident.

Baza, a Russian information outlet that steadily reviews leaked info, acknowledged on its Telegram channel that the driving force of the truck the Russian authorities stated exploded on the bridge had been contracted to ship a cargo cargo to Simferopol, a metropolis in Crimea. The motive force was presupposed to be paid 48,000 rubles, or about $770, Baza reported.

He was contracted on Oct. 6 and loaded the cargo within the Russian metropolis of Armavir on Oct. 7, stopping to sleep simply earlier than the bridge and heading on early the subsequent morning, it stated.

“He informed his household about it, after the decision he turned off his cellphone,” Baza stated. Video posted by a Russian state newspaper confirmed the explosion occurring at 6:03 a.m., when few automobiles had been touring on the bridge.

Officers in St. Petersburg named the 2 different individuals authorities stated had been killed within the explosion as Eduard Chuchakin and Zoya Sofronova, a married couple who labored as historians and documentarians. Authorities stated their automobile was driving close to the truck that exploded.

The assault may intensify inner strain that Putin is going through over battlefield setbacks. The Russian chief is because of maintain a Safety Council assembly on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated.

Already, outstanding Russians are urging reprisal, together with lawmakers and media figures reminiscent of Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of state-owned channel RT. After the blast, she asked in a tweet: “And?”

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Safety Council, known as for a forceful response.

“Russia’s response to this crime can solely be the direct destruction of the terrorists. The way in which it’s usually finished on the earth,” he stated in an interview with journalist Nadana Friedrichson, which was printed on her Telegram channel. “That is what the residents of Russia are ready for.”

Isabelle Khurhudyan in Kryvyi Rih, Kostiantyn Khudov in Kyiv and John Hudson in Washington contributed to this report.