Russia identifies Crimean bridge explosion mastermind
Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) has claimed that the organizer of the explosion on the Crimean bridge was the chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine Major General Kyrylo Budanov.
According to FSB, 12 people also participated in the preparation of the attack, eight of them were detained, Kommersant reports.
Among them are five citizens of Russia, and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia. The bomb for the explosion was camouflaged in rolls of film on 22 pallets weighing 22,770 kg, the FSB noted.
According to investigators, in early August, an explosive device was sent from the seaport of Odesa to the Bulgarian city of Ruse. Transportation was carried out under a contract between Kyiv-based Translogistic UA and Baltex Capital S.A. companies. Ukrainians Mikhail Tsyurkalo (born in 1975), Denis Kovacs (1979), Roman Solomko (1971), as well as citizens of Georgia Sandro Inosaridze, a broker named "Levan", and an Armenian citizen Artur Terchanyan (1985) were engaged in the transfer.
“From September 29 to October 3, 2022, in Yerevan, at the Transalliance terminal, the cargo was cleared according to the rules of the EurAsEC and the documents were replaced, after which it was already sent by GU AR GROUP LLC [Armenia, Alaverdi town], and the recipient is Lider company [Moscow],” the FSB said.
Then, according to the FSB, the bomb was removed on a Georgian-registered DAF truck. On October 4, the cargo crossed the Russian border at the Upper Lars checkpoint, and on October 6 it was unloaded at the Armavir wholesale base in the Krasnodar Territory. On October 7, the documents for the cargo were changed again, indicating the Ulyanovsk TEK-34 LLC as the sender, and the non-existent company in Crimea as the recipient. The substitution was carried out by Solomko, Ukrainian Volodymyr Zloba (1987) and five Russians, whose names the FSB did not announce.
On October 7, the pallets were loaded into the truck of Russian citizen Makhir Yusubov (1971), who left for Simferopol. On October 8 at 6:03 am, a car exploded on the Crimean bridge.
The FSB said the movement of cargo along the entire route was monitored by an employee of the main intelligence department of Ukraine, “who introduced himself as Ivan Ivanovich.” To communicate with his accomplices, he used a virtual anonymous number, as well as another one registered to a citizen of Ukraine, a resident of the city of Kremenchuk Serhiy Andreichenko (1988).