Explosion Damages Sole Bridge Linking Russia to Crimea in Major Setback for Putin

A massive explosion on Saturday heavily damaged the only bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia, dealing a major setback to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.

The blast ripped off sections of the eleven-mile Kerch Strait road and rail bridge, sending some pieces partly submerged in the sea, and appeared to set other areas on fire, CNN reported. Putin opened the bridge in 2018 in a gesture meant to signify Russia’s ownership of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

It is unknown who and what caused blast, although Russian officials say a fuel truck blew up on the road. Messages on Twitter from Ukrainian officials suggest that the explosions may have been an attack carried out by Kyiv, however. Early Saturday, Oleksy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, tweeted a parody video edit of Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to “Mr. President” over footage of the dismantled bridge erupting into flames. Friday was Putin’s 70th birthday. Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for the blast.

The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, called the incident an “emergency” in a statement on Saturday, without declaring a possible culprit or cause. He said Putin had mobilized a “government commission” to investigate the Kerch Bridge “emergency” in Crimea.

“The president directed the prime minister to form a government commission to find out the causes of the incident and eliminate the consequences as soon as possible,” Peskov said, according to Russian state media.

The bridge is a crucial supply line connecting the Ukrainian peninsula to the Russian mainland for the movement of military equipment such as vehicles, armor, and fuel. It was constructed after Putin annexed Crimea in a move that was denounced by the West. With this route rendered nonfunctional for the time being, Russia’s offensive in Ukraine faces a serious disadvantage, especially now that Ukrainian forces are pushing to regain ground in the Kherson region, north of Crimea.

Losing the bridge is expected to severely inhibit the Russian war effort, as only one other major land conduit technically remains to ship forces to Kherson, according to the Financial Times. The Kremlin has reportedly told Russian state media that the bridge is not destroyed but merely “damaged.”

Sergey Aksenov, the Russian-selected leader of Crimea, said that “two spans of the roadbed of the part [of the bridge] from Krasnodar to Kerch, collapsed” and afterwards “fuel tanks caught fire.”

“As soon as the fire is extinguished, it will be possible to assess the extent of damage to the bridge and pillars, and it will be possible to talk about the timing of the restoration of traffic,” Aksenov said.