The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it prevented a “terrorist attack” on the Crimean Bridge, claiming the attack was planned by Ukraine and involved a car with explosives that crossed into Russia from the Lars checkpoint at the Georgia-Russian border.
“Despite all the tricks of the Ukrainian terrorists, FSB officers managed to uncover their plans in time, detect and neutralize the explosive device carefully concealed in the Chevrolet Volt, and detain all persons involved in delivering it to the territory of our country,” the FSB’s Public Relations Center said, as quoted by Russia’s state-controlled media TASS in a August 18 report.
The FSB said the car, which traveled “through a number of countries,” crossed the Russia-Georgia border at the Lars checkpoint, from where it was to be transported by a private carrier to Russia’s Krasnodar Krai, where it was reportedly to be handed over to another driver.
“That driver was then supposed to take it to Crimea via the Crimean Bridge and become an unwitting suicide bomber whom the Kyiv regime allegedly intended to use ‘in the dark’,” the report claimed.
It is unclear exactly where the car was found. TASS report includes the FSB’s video showing authorities detaining a man at a car, his face blurred, and removing what were allegedly explosives from the vehicle.
The bridge connects the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. The FSB said this was the second attempt by Ukrainian services to use a vehicle with explosives on the Crimean Bridge in 2025. It added that a criminal investigation has been launched into the case.
It is not the first time that Russia has brought up Georgia in the context of the Crimean Bridge attacks. In 2022, FSB claimed that the explosive material used in the 2022 Crimea Bridge explosion reached its destination via Georgia. Georgian authorities denied the claims at the time.
In March 2024, a Russian court sentenced a Georgian citizen, Alexandre Inasaridze, in absentia on “terrorist attack” charges. Russia alleged that Inasaridze owned the trucking company whose vehicle transported the explosives that later detonated on the bridge.
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