Putin angrily confronts subordinates over ‘second’ Crimea bridge attack.
Russian President Putin Faces Backlash as Ukraine Strikes Crimea Bridge
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent subordinates scrambling to explain their failure to protect the Crimea bridge from Ukraine’s forces, which policymakers in Kyiv celebrated as “a blow” to the strategic and symbolic span linking Russia’s mainland to the occupied Ukrainian peninsula.
“This bridge became a symbol for Putin and a symbol of Putin’s control over Crimea, and that’s why we need to destroy it, even right now,” senior Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksander Merezhko, who chairs the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Washington Examiner. “It will deliver a blow to the image of Putin in Russia, and it will show that the de-occupation and liberation of Crimea has started.”
Ukrainian Forces Strike Crimea Bridge
Ukrainian forces reportedly hit the bridge with a pair of naval drones overnight, an early morning strike that caused part of the roadway to collapse. The attack angered senior Russian leaders, as Putin made clear his impatience with the failures to protect high-profile ground transportation links between Russia and Crimea.
“Given that this is the second terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge, I am waiting for concrete proposals to improve the security of this strategically important transport facility,” Putin told Kremlin officials.
The early morning strike killed two adults who happened to be driving on the bridge at the time and injured their daughter, according to Russian officials and footage that circulated on social media. It underscored the vulnerability of a key ground transportation link between Russia and Crimea just months after Putin drove across the bridge in order to showcase the repairs following an October strike.
“The terrorist act seriously damaged the road along several spans of the Crimean bridge, and as a result, auto and railway traffic was halted,” Putin said. “The Federal Security Service, the Investigative Committee, and a number of other departments were instructed to investigate the incident thoroughly. I am sure they will establish all the facts.”
Retaliatory Measures and Threats
Russian Defense Ministry officials have been assigned to develop a retaliatory attack — “Naturally, Russia’s response will follow,” the Kremlin chief said — and another senior official argued that the response should involve “targeted and quite inhumane steps” to assassinate Ukrainian officials and their families.
“Their own homes and the houses of their relatives should be blown up,” Kremlin Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president under Putin, said earlier Monday. “Eliminating the supreme commanders of terrorist units is key.”
Ukrainian officials have learned to shrug at such threats. “It was constructed illegally in violation of international law, so sooner or later it should be destroyed,” Merezhko said.
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