An explosion Saturday on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, caused parts of it to collapse.
Russia’s main domestic security agency said eight people were arrested over that links Russia to the Crimean Peninsula.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, known by the Russian acronym FSB, said it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia in the attack on the Kerch Bridge. A truck loaded with explosives blew up while driving across the bridge Saturday, killing four people and causing sections of road to collapse.
The span opened four years after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, serving as a symbol of Moscow’s regional dominance as well as a crucial route for getting military supplies to Ukraine and Russian travelers to a popular vacation destination.
The FSB alleged the detained suspects acted on orders of Ukraine’s military intelligence to secretly move the explosives by a convoluted route into Russia and forge accompanying documents.
The Russian security services have pointed the finger at Ukraine’s intelligence directorate and its head, Kyrylo Budanov. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday dismissed accusations of Ukrainian involvement.
“The entire activity of the FSB and the Investigative Committee is nonsense,” Defense Ministry spokesman Andriy Yusov told reporters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the blast by ordering , where his forces over the last month lost ground in the east and south as Ukraine’s military waged a counteroffensive.
The Ukrainian president’s office said on Wednesday that strikes Moscow ordered in retaliation for the bridge attack killed at least 14 people and wounded 34 in the last day. On Monday, Ukrainian authorities said Russian missiles , including five in Kyiv, the capital.
Meanwhile, the missile attacks caused a crippled nuclear plant in Ukraine to in five days, increasing the because critical safety systems need electricity to operate, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator said Wednesday.
