On 27 November 2025, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced eight people to life in prison, describing them as an organized group recruited by the Armed Forces of Ukraine to blow up the Crimea bridge. The bomb-laden truck exploded on the bridge on 8 October 2022 at 6:03 a.m. Moscow time, hours after Vladimir Putin's 70th birthday. The explosives were disguised as a cargo of polyethylene film, The Insider reported.
According to the outlet, which reviewed the case files, investigators failed to determine what exactly exploded and how. Instead of conducting actual forensic examinations, security services, judging by the documents, copied an official statement from Ukrainian intelligence. No Russian security service or customs officials who allowed the explosive-laden cargo into Russia were brought to account.
According to the investigation, the operation was made possible by taxi driver Denis Kovach and his friend, former convict and smuggler Mikhail Tsyurkalo. Both are currently wanted. In the summer of 2022, 55-year-old farmer Roman Solomko found himself in a difficult situation: equipment for fertilizer processing ordered from China was to be delivered to Kherson via Odesa, but after the war began this became impossible. Solomko then decided to bring the equipment through Georgia and took his neighbor Kovach along, who, according to Solomko, worked as a taxi driver and was to help with negotiations.
Kovach, according to Solomko, was constantly on the phone with Tsyurkalo, with whom he had served time in prison in the Zhytomyr region. Tsyurkalo became interested in clearing the cargo through customs and shipping it to occupied Kherson. He persuaded Kovach to help transport several trucks with construction film to Crimea, promising a share of about $3,000 per truck. Kovach, according to Solomko, is "lazy, does not like to work hard, wants to earn more and easier." In the end, Tsyurkalo bought Kovach plane tickets to the Czech Republic, where they met for the first time in eight years, and then Kovach went to Georgia to meet the first truck with film.
The cargo with explosives traveled from Bulgaria to Georgia, then to Armenia for customs clearance. The Insider does not disclose details of the further route. The Insider managed to speak with the convicts, who are currently in a pre-trial detention center awaiting appeal. They claim they were not drawn into the dangerous scheme and did not know about the cargo's contents.
Accounts diverge: the investigation considers the convicts an organized group recruited by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and claims the explosives were planted by Ukrainian intelligence services. The convicts themselves, according to The Insider, call themselves unwilling participants in the scheme. In addition, according to the outlet, the investigation did not establish what exactly exploded and how, copying the Ukrainian side's statement.