2022 Crimean Bridge bombing: Russian court sentences suspects to life imprisonment
Kyiv • UNN
The accused pleaded not guilty, despite Russian accusations of cooperating with Ukrainian special services.
The Southern District Military Court of Russia's Rostov-on-Don found eight people guilty of blowing up the Crimean Bridge in 2022. This was reported by UNN with reference to Russian "media".
Details
Artem Azatyan, Georgy Azatyan, Oleg Antipov, Oleksandr Bylin, Volodymyr Zlob, Dmytro Tyazhelykh, Roman Solomko, and Artur Terchanyan were found guilty by the Russian court.
All of them were charged with articles on terrorism (paragraph "b" of part 3 of article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and transportation of explosives (part 4 of article 222.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and two defendants were also charged with smuggling explosives (part 3 of article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
All eight individuals received life imprisonment. They were also accused of cooperating with Ukrainian special services. The defendants themselves did not admit their guilt.
Context
The explosion on the Crimean Bridge occurred on October 8, 2022: five people died then, and traffic on the bridge was stopped.
In response, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of organizing a "terrorist attack" and ordered massive missile strikes, which happened on October 10 of the same year. Explosions occurred in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kremenchuk, and other cities of Ukraine.
As a result of the strikes, more than 20 people died and more than 100 were injured.