An explosion Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin's faltering war effort in southern Ukraine and hitting a towering symbol of Russian power in the region.
Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed three people. The speaker of the Russian-backed regional parliament in Crimea accused Ukraine, but Moscow didn't apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge, and some lauded the destruction on Saturday. But Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility.
The attack on it "will have a further sapping effort on Russian morale, will give an extra boost to Ukraine's," said James Nixey of Chatham House, a think tank in London. "Conceivably the Russians can rebuild it, but they can't defend it while losing a war." Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian forces advanced or held the line in the east and south, but acknowledged "very, very difficult, very tough fighting" around the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have claimed recent gains.
Rail traffic was resuming slowly. Two passenger trains left the Crimean cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol and headed toward the bridge Saturday evening. Passenger ferry links between Crimea and the Russian mainland were being relaunched Sunday. Leonid Slutsky, head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Russian parliament's lower house, said "consequences will be imminent" if Ukraine was responsible. And Sergei Mironov, leader of the Just Russia faction, said Russia should respond by attacking key Ukrainian infrastructure.The parliamentary leader of Zelenskyy's party cast the explosion as a consequence of Moscow's takeover of Crimea.
In Moscow, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said "the reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature."
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