Russia says truck bomb damages bridge to Crimea

Russian authorities said Saturday that a truck bomb has caused a fire and the collapse of a section of a bridge linking Russia-annexed Crimea with Russia.

Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that the truck bomb triggered seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in a “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.” The committee didn’t immediately apportion blame.

The 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov is the longest in Europe. It has cost billions of dollars to build and it has provided the essential link to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge.


Russian state-backed media are reporting that a fire has occurred on the bridge linking mainland Russia with the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula.

RIA-Novosti and the Tass news agency quoted local Russian official Oleg Kryuchkov as saying an object thought to be a fuel storage tank caught fire and that traffic has been stopped on the bridge.

Images shared on social media purported to show fire and damage to the span.

The authenticity of the reports and images could not be immediately verified.

The crossing is a pair of road and rail bridges that Russia built after it seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in violation of international law in 2014.

The fire occurred hours after explosions rocked the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city's medical institutions and a nonresidential building. There were no immediate reports of casualties.