Putin summons meeting of the Russian security council after Crimea’s Kerch bridge was destroyed

Vladimir Putin has summoned a meeting of the Russian security council for Monday, October 10, announced Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Kommersant reports.
The announcement comes a day after the Kerch Bridge, a symbol of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, was destroyed by huge explosions.

“Tomorrow, the president is scheduled to meet with the permanent members of the Security Council,” Peskov said. Putin’s spokesman did not provide further details about the meeting. As a general rule, Putin has frequent meetings with this council, usually once a week.

An explosion on Saturday caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, dubbed as a symbol of Russia’s power taking after annexation of Crimea peninsula.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed three people, but the Speaker of the Russian-backed regional parliament in Crimea accused Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge, however Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility.

Reports say that Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and he put Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, in charge of the effort.

The 19-kilometre Kerch Bridge, on a strait that connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is a symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and an essential link to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The $3.6-billion US bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine. Putin himself presided over the bridge’s opening in 2018.