(Moscow) Who is behind the unclaimed explosion that partially destroyed the Crimean Bridge on Saturday? Kyiv is definitely involved, according to an expert consulted by The Press. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Ukrainians of having committed a “terrorist act”, and deadly strikes against a Ukrainian city followed overnight.
Updated yesterday at 11:38 p.m.
“The perpetrators, performers and sponsors are the Ukrainian secret services,” Putin summed up on Sunday after a meeting with the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, according to a video released by the Kremlin. “There is no doubt that this is a terrorist act aimed at destroying critical Russian civilian infrastructure,” he added.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SPUTNIK AGENCY, REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin
It was Vladimir Putin’s first reaction to the explosion that killed three early Saturday morning.
A large section of the roadway of the strategic link collapsed in the Kerch Strait, but traffic resumed in the afternoon. Rail traffic was restored in the evening.
Kyiv did not claim responsibility for the attack, although it was pleased with the damage. The Ukrainian government instead attributes the explosion to an internal struggle between Russian special services and the Russian military.
“It’s clear that Ukraine is involved in one way or another,” says Dominique Arel, holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa.
It is to Ukraine’s advantage not to take direct responsibility for this, and on the contrary, to imply that the Russian regime is beginning to waver more and more. Hence the hypothesis that it would be a conflict between the various security services.
Dominique Arel, holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa
PHOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Crimean Bridge on fire after the explosion
Arel finds more plausible Moscow’s theory that Saturday’s explosion was the result of a Ukrainian truck bomb. “But the question is: where did the truck come from? And how did that truck manage to pass through all the checkpoints? »
According to Russian authorities, the vehicle passed through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar, a region in southern Russia.
A former British Army explosives expert told the BBC that he believed an explosion from below deck — from a remote-controlled vessel, for example — was more likely. Professor Arel, however, dismisses this theory, judging it more worthy of Hollywood than reality.
“What is clear with what happened yesterday — and there is a pattern for several months in the war — it is because the Ukrainians have the advantage of operations”, continues the expert from the University of Ottawa. “They are able to be involved in operations without taking direct responsibility, leaving a blur, and the Russians are also in the blur. »
He cites as examples the assassination of Daria Duguina, the daughter of a reputed ideologist close to the Kremlin who died in the explosion of a car in August, and the attack on the cruiser Moskvasunk in the Black Sea in April.
Deadly strikes in Zaporizhia
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part called the Russian military “terrorists”, after strikes on apartment buildings in Zaporizhia, in the south of the country, which left between 12 and 17 dead according to the balance sheets. This attack comes three days after previous bombings that killed 17 people there.
A final report from the Zaporizhia regional administration reported 13 dead and 60 injured, including women and children.
PHOTO LEO CORREA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A firefighter observes the damage of a strike on a building in Zaporizhia.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, four cruise missiles, two missiles fired from fighter jets and other anti-aircraft type missiles were used against the city.
The Russian army said on Sunday that it had carried out strikes with “high precision weapons” against units of “foreign mercenaries” in the region.
Not far from there, the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, was reconnected to the electricity grid on Sunday.
The day before, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that the facility had lost its last external power source due to further bombardment, and was relying on emergency generators to provide the current it needs to ensure certain safety functions, including the cooling of its six reactors, all of which are shut down.
“Our team in Zaporizhia confirms that the external power line lost yesterday [samedi] has been restored and [la centrale] is reconnected to the network — a temporary relief from a still untenable situation,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi wrote on his Twitter account.
In addition, the General Assembly of the UN must consider from Monday on a resolution condemning the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia. Westerners thus hope to prove Moscow’s isolation on the international scene.
With Agence France-Presse, the BBC and the Associated Press