Rocket fuel was in spools: Russia reveals new details of the explosion on the Kerch Bridge in the fall of 2022

Russia has concluded that the first "cotton" on the Kerch Bridge in the temporarily occupied Crimea in the fall of 2022 was an attempt to "launch it into the sky" using solid rocket fuel. It was this fuel that was allegedly hidden in spools of plastic film and detonated from another explosive (plastid) at a certain point along the route.

It was an improvised explosive device with a capacity equivalent to 10 tons of TNT carried by the truck, Russian media reported, citing new expert data. As a reminder, the aggressor country calls the explosion on the Crimean Bridge on October 8, 2022, a "terrorist attack" organized by SBU Head Malyuk and intends to send the case to court this summer.

According to propaganda outlets, the investigation has recently been completed by officers of the Russian Investigative Committee, in particular from the Department for Investigation of Crimes against the Person and Public Security. They consider the explosive forensic examination to be the "most important document" in this "criminal case of 100 volumes".

"Experts, with the help of FSB operatives and the military, concluded that the organizer of the crime was the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk. According to the investigation, he had been leading the terrorist group tasked with destroying the Crimean Bridge since his appointment as first deputy of the special service in March 2022," the Russian Federation claims.

Russian investigators believe that the participants made an improvised explosive device with a capacity of about 10 tons of TNT equivalent. As the main charge, they "used a mixed explosive" based on solid rocket fuel, which contained "potassium or sodium perchlorates, as well as fine metals."

All of this was wrapped in 0.1 mm of plastic film, and the shell of the device was also a dense layer of film. The Russian Investigative Committee claims that in early August 2022, this film on 22 pallets, weighing 22.7 tons traveled from Odesa through Ruse (Bulgaria), Poti (Georgia), and ended up in Yerevan (Armenia). At the latter point, the cargo was cleared through customs with some of the accompanying documents replaced.

"On October 4, the film was transported by a DAF truck across the Georgian-Russian border at the Verkhny Lars checkpoint, and two days later it was delivered to a wholesale base in Armavir (Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation). The pallets were loaded into an International ProStar truck with a trailer driven by Russian citizen Mahir Yusubov (who was unaware of the terrorists' plans), who, according to the documents, was supposed to deliver them from Ulyanovsk-based PEK-34 LLC to the address of Extra LLC registered in Simferopol," the Russian case file says.

Those who drafted the documents suggested that such "complicated movements" were needed to weaken the attention of Russian security forces to the cargo.

They also concluded that the "improvised explosive" was detonated by another "foreign-made" explosive based on hexogen. The detonator, hidden under the film, was triggered by a GPS signal "at the moment of passing a predefined point of the route."

The explosion on the Crimean Bridge occurred on the morning of October 8, 2022, on the 156 km section of the Russian highway Novorossiysk-Kerch. As you know, the bright "cotton" destroyed two spans of the road, their supports, as well as 17 tank cars of a freight train that was moving along the railway part of the bridge illegally built by the occupiers in Crimea at the time.

The Russians accused citizens of Russia, Armenia, and Ukraine (the following names are mentioned in the case materials: Oleg Antipov, Alexander Bylin, Dmitry Tyazhkykh, Artem and Georgy Azatyan, Roman Solomko, Vladimir Zloma, and Artur Terchanyan). Moscow security forces believe that all of these people were responsible for delivering explosives disguised as film to the site of the attack. Several other people, including the head of the SBU, Malyuk, were arrested in absentia by Russian war criminals and even put on the international wanted list.

RosZNI added that the case will be sent to the Southern District Military Court after prosecutors and other "interested parties" have read a hundred volumes of the case, which Russia hopes will be in the middle of summer 2024.

As reported by OBOZ.UA, on July 26, 2023, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Malyuk confirmed that the Kerch Bridge explosion was an SBU operation that dealt the most painful reputational blow to the aggressor country. On the anniversary of that event, he disclosed the details of the attack, telling how they managed to smuggle 21 tons of explosives wrapped in packing film.

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