Saturday’s truck bombing and explosion that took out a Crimean bridge vital to Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine sparked several prominent Russians to express their frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s response, and overall war plan.
The blast, which killed three people, caused the Kerch Bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia to partially collapse, making it more difficult to maintain supply chains into the war zone, The Associated Press reported.
“Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state’s territory,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the AP while not explicitly mentioning the bombing. “Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm.”
The attack was seen in Russia as a frustrating example of Putin’s lack of using the full Russian military power in the war, and an embarrassment after recent losses on the ground.
“The terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge shows that the U.S. and its Ukrainian proxy regime will move the red line further and further,” Former Russian Parliament member Sergei Markov said on Telegram Saturday. “No response from Russia? Even further. Again, no? Even further.”
A Russian Parliament member, Konstantin Dolgov, said on his Telegram account that the attack shows the “terrorist” nature of Zelenskyy’s “puppet” regime in Kyiv.
“The terrorist attack on the Crimean bridge is another ominous manifestation of the terrorist nature of the puppet Kyiv regime, and personally Zelenskyy,” Dolgov said on his Telegram account Saturday. “Terrorists must be dealt with unequivocally.”
Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov posted on his account that NATO had a hand in the “sabotage” of the bridge, accusing the West of “applauding” terrorism.
“On Feb. 24, they were afraid to stick their nose out into the street. Now they are photographed on the streets of Kyiv against the background of a poster with a burning Crimean bridge,” his post on Telegram read. “The West applauds the Ukrainian terrorists. Obviously, the NATO command took part in the development of this sabotage.”
He then said that Russia should respond, “by all and any means.”
“It's time to remember to advise military school and act decisively and creatively,” he said. “Not following the enemy's script, but breaking their plans, delivering unexpected strikes in directions where the enemy does not wait.”
Another prominent television journalist, Andrei Medvedev, took to questioning the top leaders and their seeming unwillingness to bring the full force of the Russian military to bear in Ukraine.
“Today, fighting is a war of nerves, ideas, economies, and the psyche. Whoever breaks first will go to feed,” he said in his post. “But what will happen to us depends, among other things, on the reaction to today's events.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.