Divers to check damage to blast-hit Crimea bridge key to war

Agencies | Kyiv

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Russian divers were to examine on Sunday the damage left by a powerful blast on a road-and-rail bridge to Crimea that is a prestigious symbol of Moscow's annexation of the peninsula and a key supply route to forces battling in southern Ukraine.

Saturday's explosion on the bridge over the Kerch Strait prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials but no claim of responsibility. Russia did not immediately assign blame. 

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said the divers would start work at 6 am, with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by day's end, domestic news agencies reported.

"The situation is manageable - it's unpleasant, but not fatal," Crimea's Russian governor, Sergei Aksyonov, told reporters. "Of course, emotions have been triggered and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge."

The peninsula had a month's worth of fuel and more than two months' worth of food, he said. Russia's defence ministry said its forces in southern Ukraine could be "fully supplied" through existing land and sea routes.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the 19-km (12-mile) Crimea Bridge linking the region to its transport network was opened with great fanfare four years later by President Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv demands that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula, as well as Ukrainian territory they seized in the invasion Putin launched in February.

The bridge is a major artery for the Russian forces that control most of southern Ukraine's Kherson region and for the Russian naval port of Sevastopol, whose governor told locals, "Keep calm. Don't panic."

It was not yet clear if the blast was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such a high-profile structure came amid battlefield defeats for Russia, and could further cloud Kremlin reassurances that the conflict is going to plan.

On Saturday, Putin signed a decree for tighter security for the bridge, as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to Crimea, and ordered an investigation.

"Conceivably the Russians can rebuild it, but they can't defend it while losing a war," said political analyst James Nixey of Britain's Chatham House think tank.

Russian officials said three people had been killed, probably the occupants of a car travelling near a truck that blew up. On the bridge's upper level, seven fuel tanker wagons of a 59-wagon train heading for the peninsula also caught fire.

Limited road traffic resumed about 10 hours after the explosion, and Russia's transport ministry cleared rail traffic to restart.

In the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, just 125 km (80 miles) from a Russian-held nuclear power plant that is Europe's largest, overnight shelling caused dozens of casualties, Ukraine's armed forces said.