SIMFEROPOL, Sept. 4 - Transport Minister Mykola Rudkovsky is certain that Ukraine and Russia will be ready to implement the building of a bridge across the Kerch Strait to connect the Ukraine's Crimea port with the Caucasus port in Russia.

"We will approach the real implementation of the Kerch bridge project in 2008," Rudkovsky told a news conference in Simferopol on Monday. "Our proposal was backed by Russian Transport Minister [Igor Levitin], and the Russian government actively backs it as well," the minister said.