Washington Post: Putin’s bridge to Crimea illustrates his power - and his regime’s weak spot - May. 15, 2018

Washington Post: Putin’s bridge to Crimea illustrates his power – and his regime’s weak spot

Published May 15, 2018 at 9:15 pm

Russian President Vladimir Putin drives a construction truck across the new 19 kilometres (12 miles) road-and-rail Crimean Bridge over the Kerch Strait linking mainland Russia to Moscow-annexed Crimea during the opening ceremony on May 15, 2018.

Photo by AFP

President Vladimir Putin on May 15 opened a $4 billion bridge directly linking Russia to Crimea, giving him a propaganda victory that drew condemnation from the West and served as the latest demonstration of Putin’s personalized system of power.

Putin, clad in jeans and a jacket, walked on the Russian end of the 12-mile-long, four-lane bridge alongside the business mogul who built it — Arkady Rotenberg, the president’s former judo partner. Then Putin took to the wheels and drove over the Kerch Strait of the Black Sea in an orange Kamaz dump truck — manufactured by a state-owned company headed by Sergey Chemezov, Putin’s KGB colleague in East Germany in the 1980s. Both men are under U.S. sanctions.