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Putin blames Kyiv for Crimean Bridge blast
Summary
A look back at the Russian president's accusation against Ukraine's security service, made days after Moscow's formal annexation claims.
What did Moscow say about the Crimean Bridge explosion on 9 October 2022? Russian president Vladimir Putin formally accused Ukraine, and specifically the Security Service of Ukraine, of being behind the blast. He called it an act of terrorism.
The explosion killed three people and partially destroyed part of the bridge. The accusation named a specific Ukrainian agency, turning a damaged piece of infrastructure into a formal charge against Kyiv.
The days before
The statement came shortly after Russia's moves on annexation. On 4 October 2022, the Federation Council of Russia unanimously approved the annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, with final signing left to Mr Putin. On 5 October 2022, he signed a law formally annexing the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia.
What the sequence showed
Within five days, the Russian leadership had completed the legal steps of its annexation claims and then publicly blamed Ukraine's security service for the bridge blast. The two developments were separate events, and nothing in the reporting from those days linked one to the other. Together, they marked the political line Moscow was taking on 9 October 2022: it treated the annexed regions as part of Russia and described the bridge explosion as terrorism attributed to Kyiv's security service.
