BRIDGE FROM RUSSIA TO CRIMEA IS HOURS AWAY FROM OPENING

On May 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin is opening a 19-km bridge across the Kerch Strait, which connects mainland Russia to Crimea.

The bridge, which links Russia’s Republic of Crimea and Krasnodar Region, has a capacity of 40,000 cars per day. The vehicles section of the bridge will be open to traffic on May 16.

The railway section of the bridge is scheduled to be opened in early 2019. Its capacity is 47 pairs of trains per day.

Summing up numbers, the bridge will have the capacity of 14 million passengers and 13 million tons of cargo per year.

The project costs 228 billion rubles ($3.69 billion).

The Crimean Bridge is the longest bridge in Europe, taking over the Vasco da Gama Bridge in Lisbon, Portugal.

According to initial estimates the bridge had been expected to be fully constructed by the end of 2018 but has been completed six months ahead of the schedule.

Ukrainian leadership and experts have repeatedly criticized the project:

According to the initial version Russia was not capable of building such a bridge in the area.
Now, the Ukrainain side is claiming that the construction has damaged the environment and that larger ships will be unable to get through to its ports on the Azov Sea.
The Crimean Bridge opens amid the developing tensions between Russian and Ukrainian coastguards in the Black and Azov seas.