Russian court jails eight men for life over Ukrainian truck bomb attack on Crimean bridge

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By Andrew Osborn

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (Reuters) -A Russian military court on Thursday sentenced eight men to life in prison over their purported role in a deadly Ukrainian truck bomb attack on the bridge which links Russia’s Krasnodar region to Crimea.

Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency claimed responsibility for the attack, which in October 2022 ripped through part of the 19-km (11.8-mile) bridge, killing five people and damaging what was a key supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the bridge was a flagship project for President Vladimir Putin, who opened it for road traffic by driving a truck across in 2018.

The driver of the truck carrying the explosives was killed in the attack, as were four people nearby. A section of the bridge partially collapsed.

The eight men convicted on terrorism charges on Thursday were accused of being part of an organised group which helped Ukraine set up the bombing.

Vasyl Malyuk, the head of Ukraine’s SBU, said in 2023 that the explosives had been concealed in metal cylinders hidden inside large rolls of plastic film. He said the SBU had used others in the plot but had kept them in the dark about what was really going on.

All eight had protested their innocence at the closed-door trial and said they had not known about the Ukrainian plot. Those accused of smuggling the explosives said they had not known what they were transporting. State prosecutors argued that they must have known.

Standing inside a glass courtroom cage with the others accused, one of the defendants said that all eight had undergone lie detector tests in which they had protested their innocence, that they had all cooperated with the investigation, and that nobody had testified against them.

Prosecutors said the explosives were smuggled by road from Ukraine through Bulgaria, Armenia and Georgia.

(Reporting by ReutersWriting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow Editing by Mark Trevelyan)