Two Russian-linked stories from 24 December 2019
A look back at a rail link to occupied Crimea and a deadly strike on a shelter school in Idlib.
What did the final days before Christmas 2019 say about Russia's reach beyond its borders? On 24 December 2019, reports from northwestern Syria sat alongside news of a newly opened rail link to Crimea.
On 23 December 2019, the railway bridge over the Kerch Strait, connecting Russia and Crimea, was inaugurated. It was described as the longest in Europe. Ukrainian-language reports from the same day put it differently: construction of the bridge across the strait was complete, and a railway linking Russia with Crimea, which it occupies, had entered service.
On 24 December 2019, a war monitor reported that eight people, including five children, were killed when a missile struck a school in Jobas, in Idlib District. The school was being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. Opposition activists blamed Russia. The strike came during the northwestern Syria offensive, which ran from December 2019 to March 2020.
The two reports concern different places and different events. Taken together, they mark a day on which the name of Russia appeared in both an infrastructure opening tied to occupied Crimea and an accusation over the deaths of civilians sheltering in a school in Syria.
