Occupying authorities launch freight traffic across Crimean bridge / Screenshot
Two trains ran toward each other.
The de-facto authorities in Russia-occupied Crimea have launched freight traffic across the Kerch Strait Bridge.
"Two trains ran toward each other: [One] from Crimea with goods, and [the other one] from Russia with fuel, grain, fertilizers, and building materials," the Crimeainform information agency wrote on Telegram on June 30, 2020.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on May 15, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the motorway part of the Kerch Strait Bridge. He announced the need to build a transport passage across the Kerch Strait immediately after the start of the Russian occupation of Ukraine's Crimea in March 2014.
The construction of the bridge affected the operations of Ukrainian ports in Mariupol and Berdyansk (both in the Sea of Azov) since not all ships navigating there are able to pass under the bridge.
The 19km-long bridge connects the occupied peninsula and Russia's Krasnodar Krai.
On December 23, 2019, Putin took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch a rail link across the bridge between the Taman Peninsula and occupied Crimea.
The EU called this step another violation of Ukraine's sovereignty. In addition, officials in Brussels said the bridge limits ship navigation through the Kerch Strait to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov.