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Russia Arrests Eight Suspects Over Crimea Bridge Blast

Russia Arrests Eight Suspects Over Crimea Bridge Blast
folder_openRussia access_timeone year ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Russia arrested eight suspects over an explosion that damaged a strategic bridge linking annexed Crimea to Russia.

Moscow regards Saturday’s blast on the Kerch Strait Bridge as a terrorist attack organized by Ukrainian secret services.

Russia’s Federal Security Service [FSB] said on Wednesday that it had arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia, Interfax reported.

Explosives were stored in plastic film rolls that left the Ukrainian port of Odesa in August and transited through Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia before entering Russia, the service said.

The FSB accused Ukraine’s military intelligence service and its director Kyrylo Budanov of organizing the attack.

Twelve people were also identified as accomplices, TASS reported.

According to the Russian news agency, at least four people were killed in the explosion.

Ukraine has not officially confirmed its involvement, but some Ukrainian officials celebrated the incident.

One section of the 19km long bridge was destroyed, temporarily halting road traffic, in addition to several fuel tankers on a train heading towards the annexed peninsula from southern Russia.

The bridge, a prestige project personally opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, had become logistically vital to his military campaign, with supplies to Russian troops fighting in south Ukraine channeled through it.

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