A strong explosion destroys part of the only bridge linking Crimea with Russia

Ukraine has woken up this Saturday with one of the most anticipated news by its armed forces: the Kerch Strait bridge, the only one linking Russia and Crimea, has been seriously damaged by a strong explosion and fire in several train cars tank.

This infrastructure is key in supplying resources for the peninsula illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014 and for the invader's war machine.

Russian authorities in Crimea accuse kyiv of being behind a truck bomb attack.

The Ukrainian government does not confirm the authorship of the action, as it has already done in previous attacks against Russian targets in Crimea, although it has celebrated it with several messages on social networks.

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The videos that have been released by Russian media and Telegram accounts related to Moscow show a strong explosion this morning on the bridge after the passage of a truck.

Images taken hours later confirmed that part of the highway had been destroyed, while another had been damaged.

The explosion also occurred when a train convoy with tankers carrying fuel was passing, according to the Russian police, which has also damaged a section of the railway bridge.

The president of the pro-Russian Parliament of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, has attributed the sabotage to Ukraine.

The explosion occurred on the side of the bridge within Ukrainian territory, seized by Moscow in 2014. kyiv has not confirmed its authorship, although Mikhailo Podoliak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, has written on Twitter: “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning .

Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must go back to Ukraine, everything that has been occupied by Russia must be expelled.”

The Defense Ministry account has published a message to the same effect: “The

cruiser and the Kerch bridge, two important symbols of Russian power in Crimea, have fallen.

What's next, Russians?

The

, the flagship of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, was sunk in April with a

a Ukrainian-made missile.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces had planned attacks on the Kerch Bridge in the past, without success, in part due to the anti-aircraft defenses that protect this infrastructure.

Analysts from influential media in the region, such as

or

have stressed that the attack method could be different because the bridge has technological security systems at its entrances that detect the presence of explosives in vehicles.

The Russian governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksionov, has assured that the bridge will return to operation shortly, and that the ferry lines between Russian territory and the annexed peninsula will be reinforced.

Aksionov has recalled that Moscow has other land routes to supply resources to its troops through the occupied regions in Donbas, also bordering Russia.

These roads are less safe than the Crimean route because they are in the range of Ukrainian artillery and drones.

Alexander Kots, one of the best-known Russian propagandist voices accompanying the invading troops since the beginning of the war, has written on his Telegram account that the most significant thing about the attack is that Ukraine has proven that the security of the bridge and of Crimea as a whole are not guaranteed: "Nothing is impossible,

The Kerch Bridge was opened in 2018 by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is a pharaonic work of almost 17 kilometers in length, and it was a priority of the Kremlin so that the illegally annexed Ukrainian peninsula was quickly incorporated into Russia.

This summer, Ukraine carried out the first attacks against the Black Sea fleet, based in Crimea, the most significant, which occurred on August 9 against the Saki air base.

Also on this occasion, kyiv avoided reporting on how the attacks had taken place.

Mass grave in Donetsk

The Ukrainian army went on the offensive in September, and as it advances on the eastern front, new horrors of the Russian invasion are emerging before the world.

Pavlo Kirilenko, the governor of Donetsk, announced this Saturday the discovery of 200 graves and a mass grave in the vicinity of Liman, one of the Donbas municipalities reconquered by Ukraine in recent weeks, after months of occupation by troops. of the Kremlin.

Kirilenko has shared images of the 200 graves and the pit, in a field area.

The graves are marked with crosses, and the governor of Donetsk has advanced that they are civilian bodies.

In the mass grave, according to Kirilenko, there would be an undetermined number of corpses, both civilians and soldiers.

In the streets and parks of neighboring Sviatohirsk, some twenty bodies have also been exhumed that had not been able to be buried in the cemetery due to the danger caused by the military operations of recent months.

Liman's discovery comes just three weeks after in Izium, another liberated municipality in the east of the country, some 400 unidentified bodies were discovered in a wooded area, some with signs of torture.

The province of Kharkov, where Izium is located, was reconquered in September by Ukrainian troops.

So far, 534 civilian bodies have been recovered in the region, according to local authorities.

A United Nations investigation determined last month that Russian forces have committed war crimes in at least 16 municipalities in the provinces of kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkov and Sumi.

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