This video grab taken and launched onOct 8, 2022 reveals thick black smoke increasing from a fire on the Kerch bridge that links Crimea to Russia.
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Russian authorities reported on Saturday that a big blaze appeared on the only bridge connecting mainland Russia to the inhabited Crimean Peninsula.
Russian state-backed media mentioned the nationwide anti-terrorism committee as stating that a truck blew up on the roadway traffic side of the Kerch bridge at 6: 07 a.m. regional time prior to the roadway partly collapsed.
The blaze supposedly set fire to 7 oil tankers being brought by rail to Crimea, with thick black smoke seen increasing into the sky.
The Kerch bridge, often described as the Crimean bridge, is among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s status jobs. It was constructed on his orders quickly after the Kremlin annexed Crimea in 2014 to support Moscow’s declares to the area.
A sign of hate to Ukrainians, the 19- kilometer (12- mile) crossing is a set of roadway and rail bridges covering the Kerch Strait that Russia utilizes to move military devices into Ukraine.
A screen grab from a monitoring video reveals flames and smoke rising after a surge at the Kerch bridge in the Kerch Strait, Crimea,Oct 8, 2022.
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The reported truck surge comes one day after Putin’s 70 th birthday and at a time when the Kremlin’s months-long intrusion of Ukraine has actually sustained a string of embarrassing obstacles in current weeks.
Images and videos shared on social networks appeared to reveal the scale of the fire and damage.
CNBC was unable to individually confirm the credibility of these reports and images.
‘Crimea, the bridge, the starting’
The head of the Russian- set up local parliament in Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, blamed the event on “Ukrainian vandals, who have finally managed to reach their bloody hands to the Crimean bridge,” according to the BBC.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a consultant to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated that the damage was “the beginning,” although stopped short of declaring Kyiv was accountable.
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” Podolyak stated through Twitter.
The authorities Twitter account of the Ukrainian federal government, on the other hand, appeared to react to the event by stating, “sick burn.”
People position for photos in front of a photo of a postage stamp revealing an artists impression of the Kerch bridge on fire onOct 8, 2022 in main Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Russian media reported that traffic had actually been suspended due to the event and emergency situation and roadway service workers were operating at the website to include the blaze.
“According to preliminary information, a fuel storage tank is on fire … Navigable arches were not damaged. It is too early to speak about causes and consequences. Work to extinguish the blaze is underway,” Oleg Kryuchko, an assistant to the Russian profession head of Crimea stated through Telegram, according to TASS news firm.
The event comes hours after Russia focused its newest barrage of attacks on locations of Ukraine it unlawfully annexed.
In what the West referred to as sham referendums, Putin stated “four new regions of Russia” late last month as Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas.
Kyiv has stated it will not stop combating till it has actually recovered every last inch of land lost to Russia.
Meanwhile, Moscow has actually declared it has “the right” to utilize nuclear weapons to safeguard its area and people if it feels there is an existential risk, and even if it’s assaulted by standard weapons.
