Home › Security › Bridge blast, missile strike and a day of accusations
Bridge blast, missile strike and a day of accusations
Summary
A look back at 9 October 2022, when Russia's president blamed Ukraine's security service for the Crimean Bridge explosion and a missile attack hit Zaporizhzhia.
What did Moscow say about the Crimean Bridge explosion, and what was happening on the ground in Ukraine on 9 October 2022? The day brought a formal accusation from Russia's president and a deadly strike on a Ukrainian city.
The accusation over the bridge
On 9 October 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin formally accused Ukraine, and specifically the Security Service of Ukraine, of being behind the explosion on the Crimean Bridge. He called it an act of terrorism. The blast had struck the Kerch Strait Bridge on 8 October, causing a fire and the partial collapse of a road section. Three people were killed.
The accusation went further than the first Russian account. On 8 October, as reported at the time, the cause was described as unknown, while a Russian investigative committee said the explosion was a Ukrainian truck bomb. The next day, the claim was attached by name to a Ukrainian state security body.
Zaporizhzhia under fire
The same day, a Russian missile attack on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia killed at least 13 people and injured 89 others. The strike came as the city was still counting the cost of earlier shelling. On 8 October, the death toll from the previous Thursday's Russian shelling of a residential area there had risen to 17 civilians, including a child.
Taken together, these reports show civilian areas in Zaporizhzhia hit repeatedly across a few days, with casualty figures that were still being updated.
Other threads of the weekend
Two smaller developments belong to the same stretch. On 8 October, a Ukrainian immigration centre denied visa extensions to Iranian students, in retaliation for Russia's use of Iranian drones in the invasion. The step linked a bilateral matter, student residence, directly to the conduct of the war.
On 7 October, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize went jointly to Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights society Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation the Center for Civil Liberties. The Norwegian Nobel Committee's citation said the laureates represent civil society in their home countries, have promoted the right to criticise power and protect citizens' fundamental rights, and have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and abuse of power.
What the day showed
The public record of 9 October 2022 shows two parallel narratives. Russia's leadership framed the bridge explosion as terrorism and named a Ukrainian agency as responsible. In Zaporizhzhia, meanwhile, the casualty counts from missile and shelling attacks on residential areas continued to rise. The Nobel award, announced two days earlier, recognised organisations from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus for documenting abuses, a theme that sat alongside the reports from Zaporizhzhia.
