Traffic has been suspended on the long bridge, which connects Crimea with mainland Russia, due to an unspecified “emergency,” Crimean Governor Sergey Aksyonov said in the early hours of Monday. The bridge was targeted by Ukraine in the past.
Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov later said in a video address an underage girl was injured, while both her parents were killed, and their car was destroyed.
Writing on his Telegram channel, Aksyonov asked people to avoid the bridge, which runs across the Kerch Strait. News agency TASS cited the Transportation Ministry as saying that the bridge’s deck is damaged, while its pylons are intact.
Videos posted to social media show a traffic jam on the bridge, with motorists being forced to turn their vehicles around and drive to there they came from.
Unverified reports on Telegram claimed that there was “an explosion.” Other channels cited witnesses as saying that they heard loud bangs.
The 19-kilometer (11.8 miles) bridge was opened in 2018. Its construction began shortly after the peninsula voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia in the wake of the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev.
In October 2022, the bridge was damaged by a truck bombing, which killed five people. While some Ukrainian officials initially denied Kiev’s involvement, the country’s Defense Ministry eventually admitted that it was behind the attack.
Last week, Viktor Afzalov, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Air Force, said that air defenses foiled a Ukrainian attempt to strike the Crimean Bridge with a missile.
