Russia’s Putin Drives across Repaired Bridge to Crimea

Russian President Vladimir Putin, third right, listens to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, left, as he visits the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, which was damaged by a truck bomb attack in October, after restoration works, not far from Kerch, Crimea, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, third right, listens to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, left, as he visits the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, which was damaged by a truck bomb attack in October, after restoration works, not far from Kerch, Crimea, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
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Russia’s Putin Drives across Repaired Bridge to Crimea

Russian President Vladimir Putin, third right, listens to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, left, as he visits the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, which was damaged by a truck bomb attack in October, after restoration works, not far from Kerch, Crimea, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, third right, listens to Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, left, as he visits the Crimean Bridge connecting Russian mainland and Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, which was damaged by a truck bomb attack in October, after restoration works, not far from Kerch, Crimea, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to boost Russian morale Monday by driving a vehicle across a bridge to Crimea that a truck bomb had damaged in October. 

Putin took the wheel of a Mercedes to drive across the bridge that links Russia’s mainland with the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. 

Like other Western automakers, Mercedes halted sales of vehicles to Russia and stopped production at its assembly plant near Moscow after the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin did not try to make a political point by driving the Mercedes and not a Russian-made Auris sedan, saying the president just used the car that was available. 

While driving, Putin discussed the repairs of the Crimean Bridge with Marat Khusnullin, a deputy prime minister in charge of the project, an exchange that was broadcast by Russian television. 

The president also spoke to workers involved in restoring the 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge, which has been the main conduit for ferrying supplies to Crimea that has served as a key base for Russian military operations in Ukraine. 

In view of Ukrainian threats to launch new attacks on the bridge, Putin emphasized the need to build a highway along the Sea of Azov coast to link Crimea with regions in southern Russia, the Kremlin said. 

The Oct. 8 truck bomb attack disrupted travel on one of the two automobile lanes of the bridge. Russia blamed the attack on Ukrainian military intelligence and responded with several waves of strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities and other key infrastructure. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that widespread strikes targeting power, telecommunications and water infrastructure were intended to weaken Ukraine’s military potential and to derail shipments of Western weapons. 

Ukrainian authorities said there was another such barrage on Monday, hours after Russian media reported two explosions at air bases in Russia. One reportedly happened at a base that houses nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes in Ukraine. 



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."