A video promoting the bridge across the Kerch Strait, which is currently under construction, was shown to visitors at Russia’s International Investment Forum. The bridge is supposed to connect mainland Russia and Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine last year.
The video claims that only 4 million people cross the Kerch Strait today, but “millions of people are waiting for the bridge.”
“Our grandfathers built BAM [the 4,324 kilometer-long Baikal-Amur Mainline]. And we will build the bridge,” the video says.
The bridge would be 19 kilometers long and serve cars and trains. The estimated price of the project is $7 billion.
Hollande hugged Poroshenko, but only awkwardly shook hands with Putin.
Lawyers of Ukrainian pilot Nadia Savchenko, who is currently jailed in Russia, expect the Paris meeting of leaders will yield guarantees that Savchenko would be released.
“At a meeting in the Normandy format the issue of Nadia Savchenko’s release has to be firmly presented to Putin,” tweeted Nikolai Polozov.
“Savchenko’s defense would expect from the Normandy negotiations not just Putin’s guarantees about her release, but concrete dates,” tweeted Mark Feigin.
The hearings in Savchenko’s case in the Russian city of Donetsk court are ongoing. The next session will take place on October 6.
So, Ukrainian presidential spokesman, Svyatoslav Tsegolko has tweeted a picture of the negotiations in Paris, featuring all of the so-called Normandy 4.