Svitolina's Rome title and the Kerch bridge opening, May 2018
A look back at a tennis win by a Ukrainian player on 20 May 2018, and at the Kerch Strait bridge opened days earlier in annexed Crimea.
What did Ukrainian news carry on 20 May 2018? Foremost was sport: Elina Svitolina won the WTA Premier tournament in Rome, beating the world number one, Simona Halep, in the final. The victory also set a national record for the number of tournaments won.
The result came in the same week as a very different story. On 15 May 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened the road section of the Kerch Strait Bridge, a 19-kilometre road-and-rail crossing linking Russia with Crimea. Reports from that day described the bridge as opened in annexed Crimea.
The setting
Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine in February and March 2014, occupied it and then annexed it after what was later described as an illegitimate referendum. That took place amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. The bridge opening on 15 May 2018 therefore took place on territory that Russia had annexed four years earlier.
The two stories sat side by side in the days around 20 May 2018: a sporting success for a Ukrainian player on the international stage, and a new piece of infrastructure tying the annexed peninsula to Russia.
