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Putin Inspects Crimean Bridge Partially Destroyed By Explosion


President Vladimir V. Putin inspected the repair of the bridge connecting the country with the Crimean Peninsula on Monday, two months after an explosion partially destroyed the bridge in an embarrassing blow to the Russian leader. and Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

The October attack on the Kerch Bridge, a passionate project of Mr. Putin that has become a key supply route for Moscow’s forces in southern Ukraine, was a pivotal moment in the war. The Kremlin accused Ukraine of orchestrating the explosion, which showed Russia’s inability to protect vital strategic assets and prompted Moscow to launch a wave of air strikes on Ukraine.

Video released by the Kremlin shows Putin driving a Mercedes across the bridge. Accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, who is in charge of the repairs, Putin inquired about the progress of the work and said he hoped the road and railway bridges would be fully restored by the middle of the summer break.

Pointing to the still charred section of the bridge, he said, “this was a huge explosion.”

When the bridge opened in 2018, it was a powerful icon about the connection the Kremlin is trying to create between Russia and Crimea, an area of ​​Ukraine that was illegally annexed by Moscow four years earlier. Mr. Putin took personal credit for its construction, driving a truck along its 12-mile route at the head of a convoy.

On Monday, he also credited the construction of two train tracks and two lanes of traffic each way, as the redundancy allowed a partial restoration of traffic shortly after the October explosion. .

While the Ukrainian government did not claim responsibility for the explosion, which caused part of the bridge crashed into the sea on October 8, a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government banned discussion of the explosion, confirmed that Ukraine’s intelligence agency is behind it.

The Kerch Offensive took place during a period of defeat by Russian forces in Ukraine, including the loss of territory they had captured in the northeastern part of the country. Two days after the bridge attack, Russia escalated its strategy of attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with a series of rockets launched at power plants and other facilities.

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