Crimea Bridge

[john sefton]

Vladimir Putin opened a bridge that will serve as Russia's first road link to Crimea, a symbolic victory for him that will also reduce the annexed peninsula's isolation.

To christen the bridge, which at almost 12 miles is the longest in Europe, Mr Putin got behind the wheel of an orange Kamaz lorry on live television and cruised across to Crimea. 
“I congratulate you on this historic holiday,” the president told labourers at the other end. “It's historic because in different epochs, back in the times of our father the tsar, people dreamed about building this bridge. Finally thanks to your talent and work, this project, this wonder, has been completed.” Mr Putin added that the four lanes of automobile traffic would accommodate 14 million people a year, bringing Crimea and Russia “closer to each other” and allowing the peninsula to grow at a “new economic tempo”. 

At a total cost of £2.7 billion, the bridge is the kind of no-expense-spared patriotic megaproject that has marked Mr Putin's rule, along with the 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 World Cup. The president, whose approval ratings shot above 80 per cent with Crimea's annexation, personally oversaw it. The bridge may offer some relief for residents of the peninsula, who largely supported annexation but have suffered high prices for food and goods after deliveries from Ukraine were stopped. Sanctions have cut off trade with the rest of the world.

A company belonging to Arkady Rotenberg, Mr Putin's childhood judo sparring partner, took on the high-pressure, technically challenging task of building the bridge.
The United States sanctioned Mr Rotenberg and his brother Boris in 2014 for fulfilling state contracts for presidential “pet projects” like the Sochi Games, as did the European Union. It later sanctioned companies involved in the bridge's construction.

The state department condemned the opening of the bridge, calling it an "attempt by Russia to solidify its unlawful seizure and its occupation of Crimea" and complaining that it blocked large ships from reaching Ukrainian waters in the Sea of Azov. 

Spanning the notoriously windy Kerch strait was not only a geopolitical victory, but also a feat of engineering. The Soviet bridge over the strait, whose construction was begun by Nazi forces, had to be dismantled after it was damaged by ice in 1945.

The new bridge relies on piles running up to 350 feet deep to cross four miles of open water. As many as 15,000 workers at a time toiled on the 27-month project. The 6,000-tonne twin central arches had to be built on shore and then moved into place by boats.

During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bridge was attacked on multiple occasions. On 8 October 2022 an explosion occurred on the roadway leading from Russia to Crimea, causing parts of the road bridge to collapse and starting a large fire on the rail bridge