Eight people arrested after explosion on Krimbron

Of:

Joachim Kerpner

PUBLISHED: TODAY 07.57

UPDATED: LESS THAN 30 MIN AGO

NEWS

The Russian security service FSB has arrested eight people suspected of being behind the explosion on the Crimean bridge.

The FSB states that the Ukrainian military security service organized the act, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

Ukraine's Interior Minister Andrey Yusov dismisses the Russian Federal Security Service FSB's investigation as nonsense, The Guardian reports.

The newspaper refers to Reuters where the interior minister describes the FSB and an investigative committee as "fake structures that serve Putin's regime, so we will definitely not comment on their statements".

The bridge explosion occurred on October 8, when a truck drove over the bridge and blew up. Now the Russian security service FSB has arrested five Russian citizens and three citizens from Ukraine and Armenia.

The Russian Investigative Committee - the equivalent of the prosecutor's office in Sweden - has together with the FSB concluded that explosive material was hidden on pallets of construction material weighing 22.7 tonnes. They were then ferried by boat from the Ukrainian port city of Odesa across the Black Sea to Bulgaria.

The FSB names five people who are said to have organized the shipment of the explosive material on to a Georgian port, and from there to the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

Photo: AFP TT NEWS AGENCY

Says the bomb was dropped by truck

On October 4, the explosives were transported from Armenia via Georgia in a DAF 4 truck to a cargo terminal in the Krasnodar region of Russia, according to the FSB and the Investigative Committee.

On October 7, the documents regarding the cargo must have been changed, among other things, a non-existent company on the Crimean peninsula must have been specified as the recipient.

The next day, on October 8, an unnamed Russian man, born in 1971, allegedly drove the truck with explosives over the Crimean bridge. At 06:03 local time, the cargo exploded, severely damaging the bridge. Four people are said to have died in the explosion.

The fireball became huge and reached directly up to the railway bridge above the road.

The fireball became huge and reached directly up to the railway bridge above the road.

A named employee of the Ukrainian military security service must have coordinated the cargo's movements, writes Interfax with reference to the FSB.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday that Ukraine is behind the bridge explosion.

- There is no doubt that it is a terrorist act, with the aim of destroying important civilian Russian infrastructure, Putin said at the time.

In addition to the eight arrested, four more people are said to be suspected of involvement in the bridge explosion.