Russian President Vladimir Putin has put terrorism charges on Ukraine for attacking the bridge to Russian-annexed Crimea. The Russian President said that Ukraine’s intelligence forces had planned to destruct an important part of Russia’s civil infrastructure.
The accusation arose during the President’s meeting with Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia. According to the officials, three people lost their lives in the blast. They said that the victims were in a car close to where a lorry blasted.
Vladimir Putin said, “There is no doubt, this is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure. Its authors, perpetrators, and beneficiaries are the security services of Ukraine.” Adding to Putin’s charges, Bastrykin said that the Russian Citizens and also some foreign states had helped in preparations for the attack.
Bastrykin also said that investigators have confirmed that the truck, that according to them blew up, traveled through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia, and Krasnodar Territory. He has asked for a probe into the incident that caused part of the road to collapse. Officials from Ukraine have not claimed that the attack was carried out by their troops.
However, Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, has denied the charges. After the charges were put on Ukraine, he wrote, “there is only one terrorist state here, and the whole world knows who it is”. “Does Putin accuse Ukraine of terrorism? It looks too cynical even for Russia,” he added.
In his nightly address, President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the incident and said, “Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state’s territory.”
“Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm,” he added.
The Russian authorities partially allowed only light traffic to use the roadway side of the bridge. Besides, the authorities also reopened the railway side of the bridge, where oil tankers caught fire.
The bridge, 19 kilometers long and the longest in Europe is a crucial route for various supplies for Russian troops posted in Ukraine. The bridge is used by Russia to transport soldiers, military supplies, and equipment to battlegrounds in southern Ukraine.
In 2018, Putin officially opened the bridge four years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
