Russia’s state-run RIA news agency said a fuel tank caught fire on the Krych bridge in Crimea early Saturday, while Ukrainian media reported the explosion.
Traffic was suspended on the road and rail bridge, which opened in 2018 and was designed to connect Crimea to Russia’s transport network.
“There has been a fire in a fuel tank on a section of the Crimean bridge,” the agency said, citing a regional official, but without specifying the cause.
Crimean bridge this morning. pic.twitter.com/chmoUEIxt7
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 8, 2022
“The shipping arches are not damaged.”
Ukrainian media say that the explosion on the bridge happened around 6 am.
Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the bridge in 2018, after Crimea was annexed by Ukraine in 2014, prompting sanctions and straining relations with the West.
In September, Russia announced the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia provinces after holding referendums in what Kyiv and the West say were phoney exercises at gunpoint.
Putin signed a decree on Friday that establishes a new operator for the Exxon Mobil Corp-led Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in Russia’s Far East.
His move, affecting Exxon’s largest investment in Russia, mimics a strategy it has used to seize other energy properties in the country.
