Huge Blast Rocks Kerch Bridge In Crimea; Span Collapses Into Sea

A fireball erupted early on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, on the sole bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland, killing three, with two spans of the crossing collapsing into the sea along with 13 fuel rail cars and imperiling the primary supply route for Russian troops fighting in the south of Ukraine, Andrew E. Kramer and Michael Schwirtz reported for the New York Times.

Photo Insert: A satellite image of smoke erupting from the Kerch Bridge

The 12-mile-long Kerch Strait Bridge, which Hannah Ritchie of CNN described as Europe’s longest, has become an important symbol of the claims that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin makes to the peninsula, which his forces seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Putin presided over the opening of the bridge in 2018 and drove a truck across. The Kerch bridge is able to handle 40,000 cars a day and to move 14 million passengers and 13 million tons of cargo per year. After the bridge opened, the US condemned its construction as illegal.

“Russia’s construction of the bridge serves as a reminder of Russia’s ongoing willingness to flout international law,” the US State Department said. The Associated Press (AP) reported that a truck bomb caused a fire and the collapse of a section of a bridge linking Crimea with Russia.

Officials admitted the blast damaged a key supply artery for Moscow's war effort in southern Ukraine.

Videos showed intense flames and a large plume of black smoke billowing off the railroad section of the bridge. At least part of the automobile section, which runs parallel, appeared to have collapsed.

RIA, a Russian state news agency, reported that a tank with fuel had caught fire and that the bridge deck was undamaged. But a pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel, Ria-Melitopol, posted a video showing that two sections of the bridge had been damaged, suggesting sabotage or a strike on the bridge, not an accident.

Automatically, Russia blamed yet another accident for the explosion, like it did when a Ukraine missile sank the Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, and missiles destroyed nine warplanes and an airbase in Crimea.

“A cistern is burning, and look, the road is damaged,” a man speaking Russian says in the video filmed from the bridge. Ukrainian officials did not comment on the cause of the fire, which occurred the day after Putin celebrated his 70th birthday. Officials have said in the past the bridge was a legitimate target.

“It is an illegal construction and the main gateway for supplying the Russian army in Crimea,” Mikhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, said in August. “These kind of objects must be destroyed.”

An official did not deny that Ukrainian forces were behind the attack but would not confirm it. He added: “Putin should be happy. Not everyone gets such an expensive present on their birthday.”

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