Vladimir Putin has opened a bridge between the Russian mainland and Crimea, tightening Russia’s hold over the contested peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. In 2016 the US imposed sanctions on Russian companies that were helping to build the bridge across the Kerch strait. “In different historical epochs, even under the tsar priests, people dreamed of building this bridge,” Putin told workers at the ceremony. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had considered and then scrapped plans to build a bridge over the Kerch strait. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Putin sits in a dump truck before driving it on the newly opened bridge.

Source: The Guardian May 15, 2018 15:00 UTC