On Thursday (11/26/2025), a Russian military court sentenced eight defendants to life imprisonment on charges of carrying out the attack on the bridge over the Kerch Strait linking the Ukrainian Crimean Peninsula, which it annexed to the continent of Russia. The attack, which occurred on October 8, 2022, killed four people and caused severe damage to that infrastructure.
The Southern Military District Court issued the ruling after a trial held behind closed doors, according to the official Russian TASS agency.
During the first session of the trial, the court stated that the case materials contained confidential information, which prevented the hearing from being public.
Gasan Radjabov, one of their lawyers, said that all the defendants have pleaded not guilty.
The court considered that it had been proven that the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Security Service, Vasily Malyuk, and unknown others formed a criminal group to carry out the attack on the Crimean Bridge.
According to the Russian military judiciary, Malik prepared the explosives in Ukraine, hid them in the form of a batch of polyethylene intended for construction, and sent them from the port of Odessa to Russia via Bulgaria, Georgia, and Armenia.
Finally, the truck loaded with explosives, driven by a man who did not know the true nature of the shipment he was transporting, was blown up by the perpetrators of the attack while it was on the bridge.
As a result of the explosion, the truck driver and four other people who were riding in a utility vehicle that was driving near the car bomb were killed.
Part of the bridge designated for railway and automobile traffic, which is 19 kilometers long, was damaged by the explosion.
In Russia, the bridge is considered a symbolic act of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration, and Ukraine has denounced the bridge as a violation of its sovereignty and an attempt to legitimize the annexation of Crimea.
CP (efe, dpa, ap)