Simferopol court arrests five people in connection with Crimean Bridge explosion

Simferopol’s district court has arrested and sent to a pre-trial detention centre five defendants in a criminal case on the Crimean Bridge explosion, Russia’s news agencies Interfax and TASS report, citing a source and the court respectively.

Lawyers for two defendants confirmed the arrest to Interfax, however, they refused to comment further. According to Interfax, the arrested men are Artyom Azatyan, Georgy Azatyan, Roman Solomko, Volodymyr Zloba, and Artur Terchanyan. They will remain in custody until 8 December.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) previously said that Ukrainian citizens Solomko and Zloba as well as Armenian citizen Terchanyan were involved in sending the explosive device to Russia through Bulgaria, Georgia, and Armenia. Artyom and Georgy Azatyan were not mentioned in FSB’s statement.

According to FSB, the explosive device was rigged inside rolls of polythene wrap on 22 pallets weighing over a ton each loaded into a truck. Those were shipped from Odesa to Bulgaria’s Ruse in early August. FSB accused Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Defence Ministry Intelligence, of being the one to organise the explosion.

On 8 October, an explosion occurred on the Crimean Bridge, connecting mainland Russia and Crimea. Part of the bridge collapsed, and a freight train transporting fuel caught fire. Four people were killed by the explosion, Russia’s authorities previously said, including the truck’s driver, and three people inside a passing-by car, one of them, according to TASS, was Sergey Maslov, the judge for Moscow’s Arbitration Court.

On 9 October, Vladimir Putin called the Crimean Bridge explosion “a terrorist attack against Russia’s essential infrastructure” and accused Ukraine’s intelligence of preparing the attack. Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that “Ukrainian nationals, as well as citizens of Russia and other countries, were involved”. A criminal procedure on the case of terrorism was initiated.