- Russia says rail traffic across the bridge is running on schedule
- Bridge across the Kerch Strait vital for supplying Russian troops
- The towering structure is a symbol of Russia’s annexation of Crimea
- The blast comes amid Russian defeats on the battlefield
- Russian missile attacks in southeastern Ukraine kill 12
KYIV, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Russian divers were due to examine the damage of a powerful explosion on a road and railway bridge in Crimea on Sunday, which is a towering symbol of Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula and a key supply route for their forces. fighting in southern Ukraine.
Saturday’s explosion at the bridge over the Kerch Strait prompted cheerful messages from Ukrainian officials, but no claim of responsibility. Russia did not immediately blame the blast, which footage showed blew away half of a section of the bridge’s roadway, with the other half still attached.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said divers would begin work in the morning, with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by the end of the day, national news agencies reported .
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“The situation is manageable – it’s unpleasant, but not fatal,” Crimea’s Russian governor, Sergei Aksyonov, told reporters. “Of course, emotions have run high and there’s a healthy desire for revenge.”
Russia’s transport ministry said freight trains and long-distance passenger trains crossing the Crimea bridge were running as scheduled on Sunday. Limited traffic resumed on Saturday around 10 hours after the explosion.
Aksyonov said the peninsula had a month’s worth of fuel and more than two months’ worth of food, he said. Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that its forces in southern Ukraine could be “fully supplied” through existing land and sea routes.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and the 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge linking the region to its transport network was opened with much fanfare four years later by President Vladimir Putin.
Kyiv is demanding that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula, as well as the Ukrainian territory they occupied in the invasion that Putin launched in February.
It was not yet clear whether Saturday’s explosion was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such a prominent structure came amid Russia’s battlefield defeats and could further cloud the Kremlin’s assurances that the conflict is over. will plan
A cargo ship sails alongside the Kerch Bridge, after an explosion destroyed part of it, in the Kerch Strait, Crimea, October 9, 2022. REUTERS/Alexey Pavlishak
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Elsewhere, at least 12 people were killed in shelling in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early Sunday and 49 people were hospitalized, including six children, Ukrainian authorities said .
A nine-story building was partially destroyed overnight, five other residential buildings were leveled and many more were damaged in 12 Russian missile strikes, said Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
The city of Zaporizhzhia, about 52 km (30 miles) from a Russian-controlled nuclear power plant that is Europe’s largest, has been bombed frequently in recent weeks.
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The bridge over the Kerch Strait is an important artery for Russian forces in southern Ukraine, where they control most of the Kherson region and large parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, and for the port of Sevastopol, which has its base the Russian fleet of the Black Sea.
Russian officials said three people were killed in the Saturday morning explosion. On the upper level of the bridge, seven fuel tank cars from a 59-car train bound for the peninsula also caught fire.
Russia’s federal counterterrorism agency said Saturday that a freight truck exploded on the bridge’s roadway. He said two sections of the road bridge had partially collapsed, but the arch that crosses the canal through which ships travel between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov was not damaged.
While the explosion “would not greatly affect the supply of the army,” there would be logistical problems for Crimea, Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, said in a statement in social networks.
The blast came a day after Putin’s 70th birthday and also coincided with Russia’s third military appointment in a week. Moscow appointed Air Force General Sergei Surovikin to take charge of the invasion effort.
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Reporting by Max Hunder, Jonathan Landay and Reuters bureaus Writing by Kevin Liffey, Alistair Bell and Clarence Fernandez Editing by William Mallard, Raissa Kasolowsky and Frances Kerry
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