Russian Court Sentences To Life In Prison Perpetrators Of Bombing The Crimean Bridge

UNSPLASH ILLUSTRATION

JAKARTA - A court in Russia on Thursday sentenced eight people to terrorism cases over a bridge attack linking Russia to Moscow's annexed Crimea, which is a major supply line for Kremlin forces in the war with Ukraine.

The court sentenced all defendants to life imprisonment.

The attack on the bridge in October 2022 came when a truck bomb blew up two parts and needed time to repair for months.

The explosion killed the truck driver and four other people in a nearby car.

Moscow denounced the attack as an act of terrorism and retaliated by bombarding Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, which targeted the country's power grid during winter.

Ukraine's Security Service, known as SBU, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Eight people, including citizens of Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia, were arrested. Five others, including three Ukrainian nationals and two Georgian citizens, were charged in absence.

Artyom and Georgy Azatyan, Oleg Antipov, Alexander Bylin, Vladimir Zloba, Dmitry Tyazhelykh, Roman Solomko, and Artur Terchanyan were charged with carrying out terrorist attacks and illegal arms trafficking. Solomko and Terchanyan were also accused of smuggling explosives.

Russian authorities have accused them of assisting Ukraine in organizing the attack.

All those arrested have denied the allegations and insisted they did not know the truck was carrying explosives, according to Russian media reports.

Lieutenant General Vasyl Maliuk, head of SBU, said in an interview in 2023 he and two other "trust staff members" prepared the attack and used other people without their knowledge.

A military court in the town of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, about 100 kilometers east of the border with Ukraine, began a closed trial of the defendants in February 2025.

Russian authorities have accused Maliuk of organizing the attack.

Antipov, a businessman whose logistics firm handled cargo deliveries in an exploding truck, went to Russia's Federal Security Service, FSB, as soon as he heard about the explosion and failed to contact the car driver.

He hopes to help with the investigation, he and his wife, Irina, told Mediazone's independent news site. Security officers initially let him go, but a few days later he was arrested.

Video published by Mediazone showed Antipov speaking in the courtroom after the verdict and insisting, "We are innocent. We are innocent."

"We all passed eight people we all passed the graph test. We all proved our innocence. We worked together completely. We ourselves went to law enforcement and testified. No one testified against us," said Antipov of the glass booth in the courtroom, where he stood with the other defendants.

All witnesses said we were innocent. All the evidence says we are innocent. All 116 volumes (case files) say we are innocent. Show the truth to the community," he continued.

The bridge linking Crimea and Russia has an important meaning to Moscow, both logistically and psychologically, as the main route of military and civilian supply as well as affirming the Kremlin's control of the peninsula illegally annexed in 2014.