Russia convicts and hands life sentences to 8 people over attack on a key bridge to Crimea
A Russian court convicted eight people on Thursday on terrorism charges for an attack on the bridge connecting Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea and a key supply route for Kremlin forces. war with Ukraine.
The court sentenced all the defendants to life imprisonment.
Attack on the bridge in October 2022 when did he arrive a truck bomb blew up two of its sections and months of repairs were required. The explosion killed the truck driver and four others in a nearby car. Moscow condemned the attack as an act of terrorism and responded by bombing Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, targeting the country’s power grid throughout the winter.
The Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, claimed responsibility for the attack.
8 people, including Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian citizens, were arrested. Five more people were charged in absentia, including three Ukrainian and two Georgian citizens.
Artyom and Georgy Azatyan, Oleg Antipov, Alexander Bylin, Vladimir Zloba, Dmitry Tyazhelykh, Roman Solomko and Artur Terchanyan were accused of organizing a terrorist attack and illegal arms trafficking. Solomko and Terchanyan were also accused of smuggling explosives.
Russian officials accused them of aiding Ukraine in organizing the attack. According to Russian media reports, all those arrested denied the charges and insisted they did not know the truck was carrying explosives.
SBU chief Lieutenant General Vasyl Maliuk said in a 2023 interview that he and two other “trusted personnel” prepared the attack and used other people without his knowledge.
A military court in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, began trying the defendants behind closed doors in February 2025. Russian authorities accused Maliuk of organizing the attack.
Entrepreneur Antipov, whose logistics company handled the shipment of the cargo in the exploded truck, went to the Russian Federal Security Service FSB as soon as he heard about the explosion and could not reach the driver of the vehicle.
He and his wife, Irina, told the independent Mediazona news site that he hoped to assist in the investigation. Security guards initially let him go but he was arrested days later.
A video published by Mediazona shows Antipov speaking in the courtroom after the verdict and insisting, “We are innocent. We are innocent.”
“We all passed – there were eight of us – we all passed the lie detector test. We all proved our innocence. We cooperated fully. We went to law enforcement ourselves and gave our testimony. Not a single person testified against us,” Antipov said from the glass cage where he stood with other defendants in the courtroom. he said. “All the witnesses say we are innocent. All the evidence says we are innocent. All 116 volumes (of case files) say we are innocent. Show the people the truth.”
The bridge connecting Crimea and Russia is of great importance for Moscow, both logistically and psychologically, as it is an important artery in terms of military and civilian supplies and an indicator of control of the peninsula, which the Kremlin illegally annexed in 2014.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine attacked the bridge twice: with a truck bomb in October 2022 and with naval drones in July 2023. In the second attack, two people lost their lives.
The 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge over the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black and Azov seas, carries road and rail traffic in separate sections and is vital to maintaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.
The bridge is the longest bridge in Europe and a source of great pride in Russia. Construction began in 2016, nearly two years after Russia annexed Crimea, and was completed in just over two years.
The bridge was built despite strong objections from Ukraine and has become the most visible and constant reminder of Russia’s claim to Crimea.
