Explosion of the only bridge connecting russia with the annexed territory of crimea. now, the blast partially collapsed the kerch bridge and paralyzed a key supply route from moscow s faltering war in ukraine. but this bridge isn t just logistically important, it s also a huge symbol for the kremlin in its attempt to reunify crimea with the russian mainland. ukraine has not claimed responsibility for this, but after the blast in kyiv, people can be seen taking selfies in front of a billboard depicting the image of the bridge on fire. that s not the only thing you re seeing from ukraine mocking the explosion. fred pleitgen joins us now. fred is in kyiv. he has the latest developments. what are you hearing, fred, about who s behind this explosion. reporter: yeah, well, the russians are moving very quickly to point the finger of blame at the ukrainians.
Annexed territory of crimea. the kerch bridge is a huge symbol for the kremlin and the attempt to reunify crimea with the russian mainland. let s get to fred pleitgen. russia blamed the explosion on ukrainian vandals. what are you hearing about who is behind the explosion? what is ukraine saying? reporter: the ukrainians are not confirming that at all. you see a lot of people within the ukrainian political sphere sort of rejoicing, but no one has taken responsibility yet and it doesn t seem as though anything like that is on the way as far as the ukrainians are concerned. the russians say they have their investigative committee on the scene there on that bridge and as you said, there were crimean officials who blamed alleged ukrainian vandals, blamed ukraine as well. so far it s definitely unclear who exactly was behind all this. the russians are saying that
There was a truck that blew up on the bridge and that that also caused an explosion on a train that was on that bridge as well. the bridge has both car lanes but also railroad tracks, and that train was apparently carrying either fuel or gas and three of those railway cars blew up as well. you can see some of the russian footage of the russian investigative committee on the bridge there. of course, that massive explosion that took place. what happened, they say that two lanes of the automobile part of that bridge collapsed. there was also extensive taj to the railway bridge as well. the russians are saying that in part vehicle traffic has started rolling again on that bridge. of course, not at full capacity by any means, and they want to clear the railway part of the bridge quickly as well and that, of course, is also in part due to what amara said, this is a very, very important strategic bridge for the russians. it connects the russian mainland with occupied crimea and the