An explosion on Saturday partially collapsed a bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, crippling a vital supply route for the Kremlin’s sputtering military operation in southern Ukraine and striking a colossal representation of Russian authority in the area.

The explosion, which claimed the lives of three individuals, was not immediately assigned a motive. The speaker of the Crimean regional parliament, which is supported by Russia, blamed Ukraine, but Moscow refused to assign responsibility.

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While some applauded the damage on Saturday and despite Ukrainian officials having repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge, Kyiv has refrained from taking credit.

Russian legislators are calling for President Vladimir Putin to announce a “counterterrorism operation,” dropping the term “special military operation,” which had significantly reduced the scope of fighting to regular Russians, in response to the explosion, which Russian authorities claim was caused by a truck bomb.

Putin issued a directive late on Saturday night reinforcing security for the bridge and energy infrastructure connecting Crimea and Russia, and he assigned responsibility for the task to the FSB, Russia’s federal security organisation.

After the explosion, the Russian Defense Ministry declared that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, head of the air force, would now be in charge of all Russian forces in Ukraine.

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Surovikin, who was given command of the military in southern Ukraine last summer, previously led the Russian soldiers in Syria and was suspected of ordering a bombardment that largely destroyed Aleppo.

However, Moscow tends to lose on the battlefield.

One of the four provinces in southern Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed last week, a Kremlin-backed official in the Kherson region of Ukraine stated on Saturday that some citizens will be evacuated from the area.

Young children, their parents, and the elderly could be evacuated to two southern Russian areas, according to Kirill Stremousov, because Kherson was preparing for “a difficult period.”

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The 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge, which spans the strait separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, is a representation of Moscow’s claims to the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The longest bridge in Europe, worth $3.6 billion, is essential to maintaining Russian military activities in southern Ukraine. In 2018, Putin personally oversaw the bridge’s opening.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee of Russia reported that a truck bomb resulted in the “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge” by exploding seven fuel-carrying railroad carriages. Russian Investigative Committee reported the deaths of a man and a woman who were passengers in a vehicle on the bridge. Who the third victim was was not disclosed.

Advanced explosives screenings are required of every vehicle that crosses the bridge. The Russian Investigative Committee stated that a resident of the southern Russian Krasnodar area owned the truck that detonated, adding that the man’s residence had been investigated and that experts were examining the truck’s path.

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The bridge’s vehicular and train traffic was temporarily interrupted. According to Sergey Aksyonov, the leader of Crimea who is backed by Russia, automobile traffic resumed on one of the two lines that were still in place on Saturday afternoon.

Slowly, rail traffic started to resume. On Saturday evening, two passenger trains departed from Sevastopol and Simferopol in the Crimea direction of the bridge. On Sunday, passenger ferry services between the Russian mainland and Crimea were reinstituted.

In a video message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an ambiguous reference to the bridge attack but avoided discussing its causes.

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On the area of our state, “today was a good and mostly sunny day,” he remarked. “Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm.”

Ukraine wants a future “without occupiers,” according to Zelensky. “Throughout our territory, in particular in Crimea.”