Russia has claimed Ukraine attacked a key bridge in Crimea during the early hours of Monday morning. Russian officials say two people have died in what they called an "emergency" on the Kerch bridge, linking the Black Sea peninsula to Russia's mainland. The Russian-installed head of Crimea's parliament blamed the attack on the "terrorist regime in Kyiv". Vladimir Konstantinov said Ukraine had committed a "crime" by targeting what he called "civilian" infrastructure, according to state-backed Russian media. Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility for the blasts. But a source from Ukraine's security service (SBU) said Monday that the attack on the Crimean Bridge linking the peninsula with Russia overnight was a joint operation of the SBU and Ukraine's naval forces. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not received authorization to speak on the record. Traffic was halted on the bridge off the coast of southern Ukraine, following reports from locals they heard explosions at dawn. The Governor of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov announced it had closed early Monday but did not specify the reason. The two people known to have been killed were a mother and father from Russia's Belgorod region, according to the region's Vyacheslav Gladkov. Writing on Telegram, he said their daughter was also "moderately injured". "The hardest thing is that her parents died," he added. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, though rail traffic on the bridge has since resumed. The 19-km bridge, which was opened in 2018, is a key supply route for Russian forces in southern Ukraine. It was damaged in October by a truck bomb and required months of repairs before resuming full service. The Kerch bridge is strategically important because it links Russia's Krasnodar region with the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. It also has huge symbolic importance for Russia, which built the 12-mile bridge — the longest in Europe — at a cost of around $3.7 billion. It was the physical expression of Russian President Vladimir Putin's objective to take over Ukraine and bind it to Russia forever. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014, soon after Ukraine deposed its pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych in the Maidan revolution. — Agencies
