Putin issues a decree strengthening security on Crimean Bridge

The FSB will be responsible for ensuring protection of the Crimean Bridge, according to a decree on “strengthening security measures for transport across the Kerch Strait.” 

According to the same decree, the FSB is empowered to “organize and coordinate defense measures” over two other key infrastructure elements – a power transmission line from Russia to the annexed peninsula, and the main gas pipeline from the Krasnodar region to Crimea. 

At around 6:00am Moscow time a truck exploded on the Crimean bridge. As a result of the explosion, several sections of one lane of the car bridge collapsed. On the railway bridge, located above the car bridge, a train hauling fuel tanks caught fire. The bridge was closed, though train transport across it resumed in the evening. Vehicles were also allowed across the surviving part of the bridge – at the moment one lane is open, and a second is set to open on October 9. 

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Telegram channels have published a video of an inspection of the truck presumed to be the one that exploded on the bridge. In the clip a worker checking transport quickly glances into the truck’s freight compartment. Sources say that the driver behaved calmly. Devices that detect explosives should operate at the entrance to the bridge, but they did not set off any alarms. The owner of the truck has said that he sold it but did not re-register it to the new owner.