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Putin opens Kerch Strait Bridge road link
Summary
A retrospective on the road section of a 19-kilometre bridge joining Crimea to Russia, opened on 15 May 2018.
What did it mean to open a bridge between Russia and a peninsula it had annexed from Ukraine? On 15 May 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the road section of the Kerch Strait Bridge, a 19-kilometre (12-mile) road-and-rail crossing connecting Crimea with Russia.
The opening was the auto part of the structure, which was designed to carry both road and rail traffic. It linked the Russian mainland with Crimea across the strait.
The setting
The bridge stood on territory that Russia had occupied and annexed in February and March 2014, after what was described as an illegitimate referendum. That took place amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, and the invasion marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The annexation was the first time since World War II that a European country had annexed part of another. Some analysts have seen it as the start of a Second Cold War between Russia and the West.
Seen from 2026, the ceremony of 15 May 2018 added a physical link across the Kerch Strait to a seizure that had begun four years earlier.
