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Putin tightens infrastructure security after blast on bridge

Ukrainian President indirectly acknowledges the explosion on Kerch Bridge, which Russian authorities said was caused by a truck bomb

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the Kerch Bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia.

Russia's federal security service, the FSB, was put in charge of the effort, according to a Kremlin statement.

The move by Putin came after an explosion on Saturday caused the partial collapse of the bridge that link the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlin's faltering war effort.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video address, indirectly acknowledged the attack on the bridge by talking about the weather in Crimea but did not address its cause.

"Today was a good and mostly sunny day on the territory of our state," he said. "Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea."

He said Ukraine wants a future "without occupiers. Throughout our territory, in particular in Crimea”.

The explosion, which Russian authorities said was caused by a truck bomb, risked a sharp escalation in Russia's eight-month war, with some Russian lawmakers calling for Putin to declare a "counterterrorism operation" in retaliation, shedding the term "special military operation" that had downplayed the scope of fighting to ordinary Russians.

The Kremlin could use such a move to broaden the power of security agencies, ban rallies, tighten censorship, introduce restrictions on travel, and expand a partial military mobilisation that Putin ordered last month.

Hours after the explosion, Russia's Defence Ministry announced that the air force chief, Gen Sergei Surovikin, would now command all Russian troops in Ukraine. Surovikin, who over the summer was placed in charge of troops in southern Ukraine, had led Russian forces in Syria and was accused of overseeing a brutal bombardment that destroyed much of Aleppo.

Moscow, however, continues to suffer battlefield losses.

On Saturday, a Kremlin-backed official in Ukraine's Kherson region announced a partial evacuation of civilians from the southern province, one of four illegally annexed by Moscow last week. Kirill Stremousov told Russia's state-run RIA Novosti agency that young children, their parents and the elderly could be relocated to two southern Russian regions because Kherson was getting "ready for a difficult period."

The 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge, on a strait that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is a tangible symbol of Moscow's claims on Crimea and an essential link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The $3.6 billion bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia's military operations in southern Ukraine. Putin himself presided over the bridge's opening in 2018.

The attack on it "will have a further sapping effort on Russian morale, (and) 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."

Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said a truck bomb caused seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire, resulting in the "partial collapse of two sections of the bridge”. A man and a woman riding in a vehicle on the bridge were killed, Russia's Investigative Committee said. It didn't say who the third victim was.

All vehicles crossing the bridge are supposed to undergo state-of-the-art checks for explosives. The truck that exploded was owned by a resident of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. Russian authorities said the man's home was searched and experts were looking at the truck's route.

Train and automobile traffic over the bridge was temporarily suspended. Automobile traffic resumed on Saturday afternoon on one of the two links that remained intact from the blast, with the flow alternating in each direction, Crimea's Russia-backed regional leader Sergey Aksyonov wrote on Telegram.

Rail traffic was resuming slowly. Two passenger trains departed from 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.

While Russia seized areas north of Crimea early and built a land corridor to it along the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counteroffensive to reclaim that territory.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its troops in the south were receiving necessary supplies through that corridor and by sea. Russia's Energy Ministry said Crimea has enough fuel for 15 days.

Russian war bloggers responded to the bridge attack with fury, urging Moscow to retaliate by striking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Putin ordered the creation of a government panel to deal with the emergency.

Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Russian Communist Party, said the "terror attack" should serve as a wake-up call. "The special operation must be turned into a counterterrorist operation," he declared.

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, including power plants, bridges and railways.

Such statements may herald a decision by Putin to declare a counterterrorism operation.