By Enyichukwu Enemanna
An explosion on Saturday morning hit a bridge linking Crimea with Russia, causing it to partially collapse.
The blast happened at around 6 am local time, a situation that sparked a fire on several wagons of a train on the adjacent railway bridge.
At least three people are reported to have been killed, with Russian investigators suggesting that they were “probably” passengers of nearby cars.
Images shared on social media early Saturday morning showed the bridge on fire and badly damaged, with one section in the water.
Ukrainian officials have provoked the ire of Russia by joking about the explosion, without directly claiming responsibility. They threatened to strike the bridge in the past.
Russia has not said who it thought was behind the blast, though Moscow-backed authorities in Crimea have denounced Ukrainian sabotage.
The cause of the blast is unconfirmed. Some have claimed that it was a car bomb, while others say it could have been an attack from below.
CCTV footage shared online shows a white truck driving along the bridge and then a large explosion.
Oil tankers on the rail section of the bridge caught on fire after the blast.
The blast occurred even though all vehicles crossing the bridge undergo checks for explosives by state-of-the-art control systems, drawing a stream of critical comments from Russian war bloggers who urged Moscow to retaliate by striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s security services, the SBU, published verses by the Ukrainian poet about “the Sun which rises on the burning bridge” on Telegram Saturday morning.
“Today is a perfect opportunity to revise some poems by Taras Shevchenko,” they wrote.
Ukraine’s postal service announced it is preparing to print stamps bearing the image of the “Crimean bridge, or, more precisely, what is left of it.”
Russia responded fiercely to comments by Ukraine, claiming they showed its “terrorist nature”.
“The Kyiv regime’s reaction to the damage to civilian infrastructure demonstrates its terrorist nature,” Russian foreign affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
No Ukrainian official has claimed responsibility for the blast, happening just one day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s birthday.
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 bridge, completed in 2018, was built at great expense on the orders of Putin and has become symbolic of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.
The bridge’s arches sustained no damage according to an aide to the head of Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov.
