Russia arrests 8 people over Crimean bridge blast

Russia reported that it has arrested 8 people for their alleged relationship with the explosion of the bridge that connects its territory with crimea last Saturday.

The Security Service (FSB) revealed that 5 of the detainees were of Russian nationality, while the others were Ukrainians and Armenians.

LOOK: Direct blow to Russia: the strategic bridge of Crimea is set on fire after the explosion of a truck bomb | VIDEOS

The Moscow government accused Kyiv of orchestrating the attack, but a Ukrainian official called the Russian investigation “absurd.”

News of the arrests came as new explosions were reported in the Ukrainian cities of Kherson, Zaporizhia and Nikopol.

“fake structures”

the explosion in the bridge crimea it was a powerful symbolic blow to the Russian president Vladimir Putinwho the infrastructure in 2018, 4 years after the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.

The president described the incident as a “act of terrorism” intended to destroy a critically important piece of Russia’s civilian infrastructure.

Repair work on the Kerch Strait Bridge has already started. (GETTY IMAGES).

FSB officials said the explosion was organized by “the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, its head Kyrylo Budanov, his staff and his agents.”

They also revealed that the explosives had been hidden in rolls of plastic film and taken on a roundabout route from the Ukrainian port of Odessa: first by sea to Bulgaria, then to Georgia, and then trucked overland to Russia through Armenia.

But a spokesman for the designated Ukrainian body, Andriy Yusov, denied the Russian accusations.

“All activities of the FSB and the Investigative Committee [de Rusia] they are nonsense”, told the Ukrainian media. “They are fake structures serving the Putin regime, so we are definitely not going to comment on their latest announcements.”

Beginning early Monday, Russian forces responded to the bridge explosion with a wave of missile strikes across the country, including central Kyiv. The retaliation has left 19 people dead.

More bombing and fighting

The BBC correspondent in Kyiv, Hugo Bachega, reported that this Wednesday that 5 explosions had been heard in the southern Kherson, one of the largest cities under Russian occupation and that the Ukrainian forces are trying to retake. The causes of the deflagrations are not clear.

Russian forces have continued to punish Zaporizhia and other Ukrainian cities in retaliation for the partial blowing up of their bridge in Crimea. (GETTY IMAGES).

He also said there were unconfirmed reports that the city’s air defense system had been activated.

The Ukrainian army, for its part, reported that its troops were continuing their advance in the region and had recaptured other 5 settlements.

Meanwhile, explosions also occurred in several Ukrainian-controlled cities.

Three people, including a 6-year-old girl, were seriously injured in shelling in Nikopol in the Dnipro region, a Ukrainian presidential spokesman said.

The Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry reported that several Russian S-300 missiles fell in and around Zaporizhia, with one of them destroying a residential building in a suburb. a family was rescued from the rubble of the affected building.

unalterable goals

When asked if the objectives of the “special military operation” – as Moscow calls its invasion – remained the same, the Kremlin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, replied that they are “exactly the same”.

The Kremlin Press Secretary, Dmitri Peskov, assured that the objectives that Moscow has set for itself with its “special operation” remain intact, despite the military setbacks suffered in recent weeks. (GettyImages).

“These goals only become more relevant against the backdrop of the actions of the Ukrainian regime,” he added.

In February, when he launched the invasion, Putin justified it by claiming that he was seeking “demilitarization and denazification” from Ukraine, terms he uses to refer to the overthrow of the Ukrainian authorities, which Moscow labels as “fascist”.

Following fresh attacks on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged countries to hit Moscow with more sanctions in response to “a new wave of terror.”

The president has demanded that the West find new ways to push politically to Russia and to support Ukraine.

The calls came after he virtually participated in a meeting of the G7, the organization that brings together the world’s most economically developed nations, on Tuesday.

The bloc – made up of Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – promised to continue providing “financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal” support to its country. “for as long as it takes”.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for its part, also guaranteed that it will support Ukraine for as long as necessary.

Source: Elcomercio