Russia sentences the eight accused of the Crimean bridge attack in 2022 to life imprisonment

The sentence was handed down by the court of the Southern military district after a trial held behind closed doors, as reported by the official Russian agency TASS.

During the first hearing of the trial, the court reported that the case materials contained classified information, a circumstance that prevented the hearing from being public.

All defendants pleaded not guilty.said Gasan Radzhabov, one of his lawyers.

The court considered it proven that the deputy head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasili Maliuk, and other unidentified persons, They created a criminal group to commit the attack against the Crimean bridge.

According to Russian military justice, Maliuk prepared the explosives in Ukraine, He disguised them as a consignment of polyethylene for construction, which he sent from the port of Odessa to Russia through Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia.

Finally, the truck with explosives, driven by a man who did not know the true nature of the cargo he was transporting, was detonated by the perpetrators of the attack, when it was on the bridge.

As a result of the explosion The truck driver and four other people died who were traveling in a utility vehicle that was circulating in the vicinity of the bomb vehicle.

Part of the bridge for rail and automobile traffic, 19 kilometers long, was damaged by the explosion.

Considered in Russia an emblematic work of the management of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the bridge was denounced by Ukraine as a violation of its sovereignty and an attempt to legitimize the annexation of Crimea.