RYBAR: Explosion on Crimean Bridge Events Chronicle of October 8

Explosion on Crimean Bridge
Events Chronicle of October 8

▪️At 6.05 a.m. Moscow time, there was an explosion on the bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the Crimean peninsula and the Krasnodar region.

▪️The explosion demolished three spans on the road section of the structure and damaged one and a half kilometres of railway tracks. Drivers and passengers of vehicles that were travelling on the bridge at the time of the detonation were killed.

▪️Immediately after the terrorist act, Russian services began working to reopen the bridge. By 4 p.m. the reversible traffic on the surviving road section of the bridge had been launched and by 8 p.m. the first train arrived on the peninsula.

▪️It will take one to three months to replace the damaged sections of the bridge. Until then, vehicular traffic on the facility will be restricted, rail traffic will remain at the same volume.

▪️The exact reasons for the explosion are not yet known. Analysis of open source data suggests that it was either the detonation of a passing truck by charges at a given location or the detonation of bombs mounted on the bridge spans.

▪️Disabling a section of the Crimean bridge would have little effect on the supply of the Russian Armed Forces grouping near Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, coming from the Crimean side. The delivery of equipment and fuel from the mainland to the peninsula is carried out by rail, which had already been fully restored by the evening.

▪️Although the attempt to completely disable the bridge failed, the Ukrainian command may attempt another attack on the Crimean Bridge to cut off supplies to the peninsula and complicate the position of Russian forces in Mykolaiv-Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions.