Truck Bomb Bridge Blow-Up - Russian Increase Security

The Crimea bridge which is a pivotal symbol of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in eight years ago, experience a huge blast which killed three people, Russian investigators confirmed.

New satellite images released on Saturday showed smoke and fire near the collapsed areas of the 19km (12-mile) bridge, which was opened with much fanfare four years after Moscow annexed Crimea.

Security is on the increase in Russian, President Vladimir Putin has now ordered the country's Federal Security Service (FSB) to oversee the key connector to the occupied peninsula.

A Russian national anti-terrorism committee said the damage was caused by a truck bomb blowing up, which caused seven railway carriages to catch fire. The home of a man from the Krasnodar region of southern Russia is being investigated, it added.

Officials said work to fix the damaged sections would begin immediately.

Russia's deputy prime minister ordered the destroyed parts of the bridge to be taken down immediately and said divers would begin investigating damage below the waterline on Sunday morning, Russian news agencies report. 

Hailed by Russian media as "the construction of the century", the bridge has been crucial to Russia for the movement of military equipment, ammunition, and troops into southern Ukraine.

Since it plays a strategic role in the war, Ukrainian authorities have said it is a legitimate target, as they vow to retake the peninsula. 

Ukrainian officials responded with thinly veiled approval to the explosion - but have not indicated that their forces were behind the attack.

President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the incident in his nightly address on Saturday, saying: "Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state's territory." 

"Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm," he added.

Russian authorities moved swiftly to reopen those parts of the key connector still intact and said late on Saturday that the bridge has been partially reopened to road and rail traffic.

It is a vital artery in Moscow's supply chain to the battlefront in its invasion of Ukraine - and to the annexed Crimean territory itself.

The Moscow-appointed governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said there was a desire for revenge, but made reassurances that the peninsula still had a month's worth of fuel and more than two months' worth of food.

"The situation is manageable - it's unpleasant, but not fatal," he said. 

Ukrainian official David Arakhamia, parliamentary head of Mr Zelensky's party, said "Russian illegal construction is starting to fall apart and catch fire. 

"The reason is simple: If you build something explosive, then sooner or later it will explode." 

And a Ukrainian MP told the BBC that regardless of who was responsible for the attack, this was a "big Ukrainian victory and very severe and hard loss for Russia".

"The bridge is not destroyed but damaged, but the image of Putin is destroyed, that is the most important thing," Oleksiy Goncharenko said. 

It is hard to overstate the political, symbolic and strategic significance of the Crimean bridge. Russian officials previously claimed it was well protected from threats from air, land or water - particularly since it is more than 100 miles from Ukrainian-held territory.

While Ukraine has not linked its armed forces to the explosion, it has targeted Crimea in the past. Last month, Ukraine claimed responsibility for a series of air strikes on Crimea - including an attack on Russia's Saky military base.