KERCH
BRIDGE – GEOGRAPHY
News:
CRIMEA BRIDGE ATTACK:
WHAT HAPPENED, WHY IT IS SIGNIFICANT
What's
in the news?
● Two
people were killed, one girl was critically injured and traffic came to a standstill
for hours after one of the sections of the rail-and-road Crimea bridge, which
links Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula, was blown.
Key
takeaways:
● According
to the RBC-Ukraine news agency, "Two explosions were heard on the bridge,
with Russian military bloggers reporting two strikes."
Kerch
Bridge:
● Also
known as the Crimean bridge, the
structure has come under attack amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
● This
is the second time that the bridge has been targeted.
○ In
October 2022, it was temporarily shut down after a massive explosion.
Importance
of the bridge:
● The
bridge is the only direct link between
the transport network of the country and the Crimean Peninsula.
● It
was inaugurated in 2018, four years after Russia's annexation of Crimea.
● It
is a part of the route that supplies
fuel, food and other products to the region, where the port of Sevastopol
is the historic home base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
● After
the war broke out, Russian convoys, carrying weapons, vehicles and fuel, used
the route to reach Ukrainian territories, especially Kherson region and some of
the adjoining Zaporizhzhia province.