Two killed, child wounded in ’emergency’ on Russian Crimea bridge | Russia-Ukraine war News

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Officials report ’emergency’ on bridge linking Crimea to Russian mainland and urge residents not to travel via the overpass.

Two people have been killed and a child wounded in an “emergency situation” on a Russian-built bridge linking the annexed Crimean Peninsula to Russia’s Krasnodar region, according to officials.

The announcement on Monday came hours after Moscow-installed officials said traffic along the bridge had been halted and media in Ukraine reported explosions along the overpass.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the southern Russian region of Belgorod, said the casualties on the bridge included a couple and their daughter.

“We all saw with you on a video on the Internet a damaged car with Belgorod numbers. What information is available at the moment: a girl was injured,” Gladkov said on the Telegram messaging app.

“The hardest thing is that her parents died, dad and mum.”

Hours earlier, the Russian-installed Governor of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov said “traffic has been stopped on the Crimean bridge” after an “emergency” that occurred on the 145th pillar of the bridge that links peninsula to the Russian region of Krasnodar.

“Law enforcement agencies and all relevant services are working…  measures are being taken to handle the situation,” he said.

Aksyonov did not provide any further details.

The Russian TASS news agency said train traffic on the bridge may be changed because of the “emergency situation” there, while the RIA state news agency said that police officers were warning drivers that the ferry service in the area was not working either.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, but the peninsula is internationally recognised as part of Ukrainian territory. The bridge linking Crimea to Krasnodar serves as a vital link for transporting supplies to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

Reports of the emergency on the bridge came as the RBC-Ukraine news agency said that explosions had been heard on the bridge.

Russia’s Grey Zone, a heavily-followed Telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group, also reported that there were two attacks on the bridge at 03.04am (00:04 GMT) and 03.20am (00:20 GMT).

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the reports.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

The 12-mile (19-km) road and rail bridge was damaged by an explosion last October in an attack the Kremlin said had been orchestrated by Ukrainian security forces.

Ukraine admitted only indirectly to the attack months later.

Both Aksyonov and the governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said they set up operational headquarters in their regions to address the emergency situation on the bridge.

The Russian-backed administration of the peninsula said Crimea is provided with all necessary stock but urged residents not to travel via the bridge.

Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Odesa military administration, posted a photo on his Telegram channel of what seemed to be a line of the bridge in the distance, broken in the middle.

It was not immediately clear whether that was related to the attack.