The Kerch Bridge is 19 kilometers long and is the only direct link between Russia’s transport network and Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Al Jazeera reported it was built at a cost of $3.6bn by a firm belonging to Arkady Rotenberg, a close ally of Putin. Putin opened the road span himself in 2018 by driving a truck across.
It has two parts, a roadway and a railway, both on concrete stilts that rise into steel arches where ships pass between the Black Sea and the Azov Sea.
Why it matters
Fuel, food and other goods reach Crimea over the bridge. Sevastopol, home port of the Black Sea Fleet, sits on the peninsula. After the 2022 invasion the crossing also became a main supply route for Russian forces that moved north to take most of Ukraine’s Kherson region and part of Zaporizhia.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar has said Ukraine struck the bridge “to derail Russian logistics.”
Two attacks
The first came in October 2022. Russian officials said a truck exploded while crossing, and the blast killed three people. The Associated Press reported that the explosion damaged two sections of the bridge. Putin called it a “terrorist attack” organized by Ukrainian security services and ordered retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian cities, Kyiv among them.
The second was on 17 July 2023. Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee said two Ukrainian sea drones hit the bridge. A couple died and their daughter was wounded. Russian authorities said the piers were untouched but a stretch of decking on one of the two road links was damaged. Road traffic stopped, and trains were halted for about six hours.
Kyiv did not openly claim the July attack. Southern Command spokesperson Natalia Humeniuk suggested the explosions could be a Russian provocation, while SBU spokesperson Artem Degtyarenko said “details of what happened would be revealed after Ukraine has won the war.” Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said inspectors were assessing the damage to determine repair timelines.
Dmitry Medvedev responded by calling Ukraine’s government a “terrorist organization.”
Sources
- Crimea bridge attack: What happened, why is the bridge important? (Al Jazeera)
- Russia blames Ukraine for attack on key Crimea military supply bridge that kills 2 (WJLA / Associated Press)
