But a controversial new bridge in Europe is causing a diplomatic crisis.

A new 19km and long-anticipated bridge linking Russia’s Taman Peninsula with Crimea has opened for regular traffic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday inaugurated the bridge across the Kerch Strait to the Crimean Peninsula by driving a truck across it.

The issue is that Crimea isn’t part of Russia, as far as most of the international community is concerned. Rather, it’s part of Ukraine.

The annexation by Moscow of the largely Russian-speaking Ukrainian region in 2014 caused relations with the West to freeze to almost cold war levels.

Crimea includes a major Russian naval facility at Sevastopol that had been stranded in another country when the former USSR broke up. Now, it’s under Moscow’s control.

Until this week, the only way out of Crimea by land was through Ukraine and Kiev has blocked shipments of supplies via its territory.

Previously, all trucks and cars had to rely on a ferry service to reach the Russian mainland which led to the peninsular being often cut off by bad weather. With the new US$3.6 billion bridge, Russia now has an easy way to reach it’s exclave.

At the opening Mr Putin said: “This is an excellent result that has made Crimea and the legendary Sevastopol stronger and brought us closer,” reported Russia Today .

Ukraine’s Government in Kiev worries that the new bridge will only strengthen Moscow’s grip on its erstwhile region.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin said Russia had built a bridge to nowhere.

“This is a bridge between occupied Crimea, where people are scared and disappear, and Russia, where 1,600 can be arrested in one day for a peaceful protest. Both directions are roads to nowhere.”

Britain’s minister for Europe, Alan Duncan, said the bridge was a “violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty”.

Moscow hit back at condemnation of the bridge from the US State Department. On Facebook, the Russian Embassy in Washington DC said: “Crimea is Russia. We shall not ask for anybody’s permission to build transport infrastructure for the sake of the population of Russian regions.”

Car traffic across the bridge began on Wednesday, and it’s set to open for trucks in the Northern autumn. A parallel railway bridge is set to be finished by the end of 2019.

Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 following a hastily called local vote, a move that drew US and the EU sanctions.