Three people have been killed after a key bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea peninsula was hit by an explosion.
The explosion caused a huge fire leading to the partial collapse of the Kerch bridge.
Russian authorities said three people were killed in the blast.
The explosion has dealt a humiliating blow to Putin, the bridge is an essential link to the Crimean Peninsula and is a key route to sustaining Russia’s military operations in the south of Ukraine. If the bridge were made inoperable, it would make it significantly more challenging to ferry supplies to Crimea.
The crossing is a pair of road and rail bridges that Russia built after it seized and illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in violation of international law in 2014.
The 12-mile bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov is the longest in Europe and cost the Kremlin $3.6 million.
Video footage shared on social media shows a fiercely burning fire engulfing the bridge and a section of the road bridge collapsed into the sea.
There are conflicting reports behind the source of the blast, with Russian officials claiming a truck bomb caused the fire and partial collapse of the bridge.
While Ukrainian officials will not say whether or not Ukrainian forces were behind the attack – which came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin turned 70 – some celebrated the explosion. Officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge.
The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament blamed Ukraine for the explosion, but downplayed the severity of the damage and said the bridge would be promptly repaired.
“Now they have something to be proud of: over 23 years of their management, they didn’t manage to build anything worthy of attention in Crimea, but they’ve managed to damage the surface of the Russian bridge,” Vladimir Konstantinov, Chairman of the State Council of the Republic, wrote on Telegram.
The parliamentary leader of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party on Saturday stopped short of claiming that Kyiv was responsible but appeared to cast it as a consequence of Moscow’s takeover of Crimea and attempts to integrate the peninsula with the Russian mainland.
“Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire. The reason is simple: if you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode,” David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People party, wrote on Telegram.
“And this is just the beginning. Of all things, reliable construction is not something Russia is particularly famous for.”
Other Ukrainian officials were more celebratory while still stopping short of claiming responsibility.
The secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, posted a video on Twitter with the Kerch Bridge on fire on the left side and video with Marilyn Monroe singing her famous “Happy Birthday Mr. President” on the right.
An advisor to Zelenskyy, Mykhailo Podolyak, tweeted: “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.”
Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the truck bomb caused seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in a “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.”
The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, called it “an act of war” as the country’s investigative committee said on Saturday it had “initiated a criminal case in connection with the incident on the Crimean bridge,” adding that “a truck was blown up”.
“According to preliminary information, this morning on the automobile part of the Crimean bridge from the side of the Taman Peninsula, a truck was blown up, which caused seven fuel tanks to ignite on a train heading towards the Crimea peninsula,” the committee said.
Russia’s Energy Ministry said Crimea has enough fuel for 15 days, adding that it was working on ways to replenish stock. Authorities suspended all traffic across the bridge until further notice.
Putin was informed about the explosion and he ordered the creation of a government panel to deal with the emergency.
The attack occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early on Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of pounding Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with surface-to-air missiles and said at least one person was wounded.
The strikes targeted the largely residential neighborhoods of Saltivka and Osnovianskiy, the regional governor, Oleh Sinehubov, said on Telegram.
Sinehubov said Russia had deployed S-300s missiles in the strike. If true, this would mark the latest in a series of instances when Moscow was reported to have repurposed a weapon originally designed for air defense to strike ground targets, possibly because of a shortage of more suitable munitions.