Ukraine celebrates sinking of key bridge by trolling Russia
- A blast damaging a bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland has aroused intense excitement among Ukrainians.
- Russian authorities have stopped short of blaming Kyiv, but a Russian official pointed the finger at "Ukrainian vandals".
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken of a "sunny future for Ukrainians".
The damage to a key bridge linking Crimea to Russia has prompted waves of social media memes and trolling by some of Ukraine's highest officials.
Dramatic footage showed the 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge on fire, with parts plunging off into the water on Saturday.
The bridge, the longest in Europe, crosses a strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. It is logistically crucial for Moscow as a vital transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
It is also an important symbol of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014. President Vladimir Putin personally inaugurated the bridge in 2018 — even driving a truck across it — and Moscow had maintained the crossing was safe despite the fighting.
Kyiv demands that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula, as well as Ukrainian territory they seized in the invasion Mr Putin launched in February.
Among those to poke fun at the turn of events on Saturday was Ukraine's national security and defence council secretary Oleksiy Danilov, who tweeted footage of the blast alongside a video clip of Marilyn Monroe's infamous 'Happy Birthday Mr President' song.
It was an apparent reference to Mr Putin's 70th birthday on Friday.
The Ukrainian post office also joined in, announcing it was preparing to print stamps showing the "Crimean bridge - or more precisely, what remains of it".
An artwork set in the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv shaped like a big stamp and showing two fiery blasts on the bridge attracted Ukrainians to take selfies.
The artwork was entitled "Cotton to the Crimean Bridge" and was created by Andrusiv V, Serdyukov O, Kalinovska Y and Visich M, according to Getty.
A couple takes a selfie in front of an artwork shaped as a big stamp entitled "Cotton to the Crimean Bridge". Source: Getty / SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images
'Not a bad day': Ukraine's president
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made no direct mention of the bridge in his nightly address, and officials did not claim responsibility. But he seemed to refer to the incident when he spoke of a "sunny" future for Ukrainians.
"Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state's territory," he said. "Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm."
He also said Ukraine wanted a future "without occupiers throughout our territory, in particular in Crimea".
His advisor Mykhailo Podolyak earlier posted a picture on Twitter of a long section of the bridge half-submerged.
"Crimea, the bridge, the beginning," he wrote.
"Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled."
But in a later statement, he appeared to suggest that Moscow had a hand in the blast.
"It is worth noting that the truck that detonated, according to all indications, entered the bridge from the Russian side. So the answers should be sought in Russia," he said.
Russian authorities also said they had identified the owner of the truck as a resident of Russia's southern Krasnodar region, saying his home was being searched.
On Sunday divers were to examine the damage, with a detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by day's end, domestic news agencies reported.
On Saturday, Mr Putin signed a decree for tighter security for the bridge, as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to Crimea, and ordered an investigation.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin told reporters "traffic has been fully restored" on the bridge's railway, according to state news agency Ria Novosti, without specifying when operations resumed.
Mr Khusnullin had confirmed the resumption is for "both freight and passenger traffic" in an earlier post on Telegram, and said one of the destroyed lanes would be restored "in the near future".
Local officials said the bridge reopened to motor traffic about 10 hours after the explosion with vehicles subject to stringent screening. Shortly after, Grand Service Express, which operates rail services there, said the first trains had left the peninsula for Moscow and St Petersburg.
Calls for retaliation
Russian authorities said the explosion killed three people. The Kremlin's spokesman said Putin had ordered a commission to be set up to look into the blast.
Officials in Moscow stopped short of blaming Kyiv, but a Russian-installed official in Crimea pointed the finger at "Ukrainian vandals".
Crimea's Russian governor Sergei Aksyonov told reporters "emotions have been triggered and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge."
He said situation was "manageable but not fatal", with the peninsula possessing a month's worth of fuel and more than two months' worth of food. Russia's defence ministry said its forces in southern Ukraine could be "fully supplied" through existing land and sea routes.
Some officials in Moscow and in Russian-occupied Ukraine called for retaliation.
"There is an undisguised terrorist war against us," Russian ruling party deputy Oleg Morozov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
A Russian-installed official in the occupied Ukrainian Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, said: "Everyone is waiting for a retaliatory strike, and it is likely to come."
Military analysts said the blast could have a major impact if Moscow saw the need to shift already hard-pressed troops to Crimea from other regions or if it prompted a rush by residents to leave.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that even if Ukrainians were not behind the blast, it constituted "a massive influence operation win for Ukraine."
"It is a demonstration to Russians, and the rest of the world, that Russia's military cannot protect any of the provinces it recently annexed," he said on Twitter.
"Conceivably the Russians can rebuild it, but they can't defend it while losing a war," added political analyst James Nixey of Britain's Chatham House think tank.
