New deadly strike hits Ukraine city after truck bomb blows up Vladimir Putin’s key bridge from Russia to Crimea
A Russian missile strike killed at least 12 people in Zaporizhzhia after a massive explosion that destroyed Vladimir Putin’s bridge linking Moscow-annexed Crimea. See the video.
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A Russian missile strike killed at least 12 people in Zaporizhzhia in the latest deadly attack to hit the southern Ukrainian city that President Volodymyr Zelensky called “absolute evil”.
The reports came a day after a key bridge linking Russia with the annexed Crimea peninsula was partially destroyed by an explosion, and as the Kremlin replaced its top general amid major battlefield setbacks in Ukraine.
Zelensky said 12 people had died and 49 people, including six children, were in hospital after Russian missiles again hit Zaporizhzhia.
City council secretary Anatoliy Kurtev, provided a higher death toll of 17.
At least 17 people including a child also died when seven Russian missiles hit the centre of the industrial city earlier this week.
Regional official Oleksandr Starukh posted pictures of heavily damaged apartment blocks on Telegram and said a rescue operation had been launched to find victims under the rubble.
Zelensky denounced the “merciless strikes on peaceful people” and residential buildings as “absolute evil” perpetrated by “savages and terrorists”.
Divers were to inspect the waters beneath the giant Crimea bridge after a truck bomb ignited a massive fire on the road and rail link, killing three people.
“We are ordering the examination by divers, they will start work from six in the morning,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin announced.
“First results” of Russia’s inspection of the bridge were due Sunday, he added.
Russia said traffic had resumed over the strategic link symbolising the Kremlin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The 19-kilometre (12-mile) bridge was attacked at dawn, sparking celebrations from Ukrainians and others on social media, where dramatic footage showed it burning with a road section plunging into the water.
But Zelensky did not directly mention it in his nightly address and officials made no claim of responsibility.
Following the blast, the bodies of an unidentified man and a woman were pulled out of the water, likely passengers in a car driving near the exploded truck, Moscow said.
Authorities had identified the owner of the truck as a resident of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, saying his home was being searched.
The bridge is logistically crucial for Moscow, a vital transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
While some in Moscow hinted at Ukrainian “terrorism”, state media continued to call it an “emergency situation”.
The Kremlin’s spokesman said Putin had ordered a commission to be set up to look into the blast.
Officials in Moscow stopped short of blaming Kyiv, but a Russian-installed official in Crimea pointed the finger at “Ukrainian vandals.”
“There is an undisguised terrorist war against us,” Russian ruling party deputy Oleg Morozov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Military analysts said the blast could have a major impact if Moscow saw the need to shift already hard-pressed troops to the Crimea from other regions or if it prompted a rush by residents to leave.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that even if Ukrainians were not behind the blast, it constituted “a massive influence operation win for Ukraine”.
“It is a demonstration to Russians, and the rest of the world, that Russia’s military cannot protect any of the provinces it recently annexed,” he said on Twitter.
TRUCK BOMB BLOWS UP PUTIN’S KEY BRIDGE TO CRIMEA
Russia’s foreign ministry has said Ukraine’s reaction to a huge blast that ripped through the bridge linking Moscow-annexed Crimea to the mainland showed Kyiv’s “terrorist nature”.
“The reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
Moscow confirmed a truck exploded igniting a huge fire and damaging the key Kerch bridge — built as Russia’s sole land link with annexed Crimea — and vowed to find the perpetrators.
Russia said the blast set ablaze seven oil tankers by transported by train and collapsed two car lanes of the giant road and rail structure.
Dramatic social media footage showed the bridge on fire with parts plunging into the sea.
“Today at 6:07am on the road traffic side of the Crimean bridge … a car bomb exploded, setting fire to seven oil tankers being carried by rail to Crimea,” Russian news agencies cited the national anti-terrorism committee as saying.
The bridge, personally inaugurated by President Vladimir Putin in 2018, is a vital transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
Moscow had maintained the bridge crossing was safe despite the fighting. The Kremlin spokesman said Putin had ordered a commission to be set up to look into the blast, Russian news agencies reported.
Russia’s powerful investigative committee opened a criminal probe into the explosion and sent detectives to the scene.
It said a truck exploded “on the automobile part of the Crimean bridge from the side of the Taman Peninsula”.
This “caused seven fuel tanks to ignite on a train heading towards the Crimea Peninsula. As a result, two lanes partially collapsed.” While officials in Moscow stopped short of blaming Kyiv, an official in Russian-installed Crimea pointed the finger at “Ukrainian vandals”.
The head of the office of Ukraine’s presidency, Andrii Podolyak, took to Twitter posting a picture of a long section of the bridge half-submerged in the waters.
‘Crimea … the beginning’
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning,” he wrote.
“Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.” There have been several explosions at Russian military installations in the Crimean peninsula and if it is established that Ukraine was behind the latest blast, alarm bells may sound with the bridge so far from the front line.
The blasts come after Ukraine’s recent lightning territorial gains in the east and south that have undermined the Kremlin’s claim that it annexed Donetsk, neighbouring Lugansk and the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Russian forces said Friday they had captured ground in Donetsk in east Ukraine, their first claim of new gains since a Kyiv counter-offensive rattled Moscow’s war effort.
The announcement came as Russia’s Orthodox leader said President Vladimir Putin’s rule had been mandated by God, congratulating him on his 70th birthday, and as the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to rights defenders in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
RUSSIAN GAINS
Separatist forces in the war-battered Donetsk region said they had retaken a series of villages near the Ukraine-controlled industrial town of Bakhmut, which has been under Russian shelling for weeks.
AFP journalists in the centre of Bakhmut heard the sound of heavy artillery and multiple rocket launch systems near the remains of a smashed bridge over the Bakhmutka river.
“On the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a grouping of troops of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, with fire support from Russian forces, liberated Otradovka, Veselaya Dolina and Zaitsevo,” separatist forces said on social media.
The Donetsk region, which has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists for years, is a key prize for Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine in February.
But Ukraine’s troops in recent weeks have been pushing back against Russian soldiers across the front lines in the south and in the east, including in parts of Donetsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Friday his forces had recaptured nearly 2,500 square kilometres in the counter-offensive that began late last month.
“This week alone, our soldiers liberated 776 square kilometres of territory in the east of our country and 29 settlements, including six in Lugansk region,” he said.
But Ukraine continues to suffer serious losses. Fourteen people died Thursday when Russian missiles struck the industrial town of Zaporizhzhia, the local council’s secretary announced late Friday.
Thirty people were killed last week when a convoy of civilian cars in the Zaporizhzhia region was shelled in an attack Kyiv blamed on Moscow.
Zelenskyy has pushed to punish Russia in other areas, urging Brussels to ramp up pressure on its energy sector — a day after the EU imposed a fresh round of sanctions on Moscow.
The International Monetary Fund also announced Friday it would provide $1.3 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine.
In the more than seven months since Russia’s offensive, Putin has made thinly veiled threats of using nuclear weapons.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday warned the world was facing “Armageddon” as Putin may use his atomic arsenal.
But by Friday the White House dialled back the alarm, saying the president’s comments did not reflect new intelligence.
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Originally published as New deadly strike hits Ukraine city after truck bomb blows up Vladimir Putin’s key bridge from Russia to Crimea
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