The Kerch Bridge blast.
Tyler Durden — Zero Hedge Feb 25, 2023
Russia has announced that the previously severely damaged Crimean Bridge has been fully rebuilt and repaired, after a significant chunk of it was destroyed in an October 8 sabotage explosion which killed four people.
“The Crimean Bridge is fully open for automobile traffic in all its lanes 39 days ahead of schedule,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin announced Thursday. It appears an incredibly rapid fix, given the extent of damage, and the fact that the blast happened a mere less than 5 months ago.
The Kerch Strait Bridge, linking Crimea with southern Russia. Click to enlarge
“Already on December 5, two weeks ahead of schedule, we opened the right side of the bridge, which had been damaged the most,” Khusnullin added.
“Structural elements are currently being assembled and preparations are ongoing for their installation. The work is being carried out around the clock in two shifts, 305 people and 32 machinery units are involved,” the official explained.
Road traffic had resumed a hours after the October blast on the same day it occurred, but lanes were reduced and the parallel railway line was badly damaged. At least seven fuel tanks on the the railway section had been ignited, and an entire lane and large section of the roadway had been collapsed. The rapid repair appears confined to the automobile roadway part and not the rail line section.
Moscow had immediately blamed Ukrainian intelligence or its allies for the attack, to which President Zelensky responded that he “did not order” the attack. Russia further said it was based on “terrorist tactics” and had killed and wounded civilian bystanders.
Regional media circulated fresh footage of the entirety of the Crimean Bridge back in use…
Crimea Bridge fully reopens a day before the first anniversary of Russia-Ukraine conflict pic.twitter.com/lwB0J6o9Yg
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) February 24, 2023
According to more via the AFP:
On Telegram, Khusnullin said the reopening was a “big gift for Defender of the Fatherland Day,” the public holiday honoring the armed forces being celebrated in Russia on Thursday.
Khusnullin added that since the October explosion repair work had been “carried out round-the-clock”… The Russian government had ordered the bridge to be repaired by July 2023.
Repairs on the railway part of the bridge — also called the Kerch bridge — are ongoing, Khusnullin said.
The damage had been significant, as photos revealed:
Click to enlarge
Inaugurated by Putin in 2018 at a cost of $3.7 billion, the bridge has since been used as a key resupply route to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. The attack had been the biggest escalation in the war up to that point, and was accompanied by strikes and bombings in the Crimean peninsula itself.
Glad to see those amazing S400 & S500 were so effective against incoming missiles that sank the “Moskva” and the 1980’s Soviet era drones that penetrated 800kms into Russian airspace and bombed the Engels Nuclear airbase and the Kerch strait bridge!
They are almost as good as the NASA rockets from the 1960’s that could reach Mach 33 to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth to reach space but the Yanks cannot get a “hypersonic” missile that does mach 9 successfully launched! Someone is lying……
That bridge is just so beautiful, I’d love to drive across it.
In this very brief video the Polish media captured Zelensky’s double just behind Biden and Zelensky on the stairs. Or is it Zelensky’s double and that’s Zelensky behind them. Or is it Biden’s double?
It’s all just so goddam FAKE!
https://twitter.com/LorriganMichael/status/1629771569042997248
I wondered why Nordstream has not also been repaired yet. It is a much smaller job than building it
@Nick.
Give ’em a go.
Far ‘safer’ for now. The Great belt East-Denmark.
another beauty, & very very long. Then shortly after, Ostersund to Sweden side.
Sensational driving.
Commies need their bridge to continue transporting weapons to slay thousands/millions of Aryan Ukrainians in Holodomor II.
Mr Kollostomy of course you will when the KGB finally takes over the West and you are driven East.
Remember the Soviet Union was the only nation to make ‘anti-semitism’ a crime carrying the death penalty. Bon chance mon ami
I once persuaded the tollkeeper on the Forth Road Bridge (in Edinburgh) to allow me to cross the mighty span on foot, while the road route was closed to all traffic because of the severity of the gale force winds. The tollkeeper was a very amicable, middle-aged woman, who advised against it but said that I could cross via the pedestrian lane at my own risk. The pedestrian lane is at the outer edge of the windward side of the the Road Bridge, where leaning over the rails you can delight in the sheer perspective of the vertiginous plunge into the icy estuary.
I couldn’t really get to enjoy the view as I crossed, unfortunately because I had to lean into the wind and rain at a forty-five degree angle, just to keep on my feet. It seemed to take quite a lot longer to cross the bridge than I thought it would but boy, was that briney blast exhilirating.
@LEWIS JONES
because of water pressure the whole pipe
will not be reparable !