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AP
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — A Russian barrage pounded condominium buildings and different targets within the Ukrainian metropolis of Zaporizhzhia, killing at the very least 17 individuals and wounding dozens, officers mentioned Sunday.
The blasts within the metropolis, which sits in a area Moscow has claimed as its personal, blew out home windows in adjoining buildings and left at the very least one high-rise condominium constructing partially collapsed.
The strike got here after an explosion Saturday brought about the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an essential provide artery for the Kremlin’s faltering battle effort in southern Ukraine and hitting a towering image of Russian energy within the area.
Metropolis council Secretary Anatoliy Kurtev mentioned rockets struck Zaporizhzhia in a single day, and that at the very least 5 personal homes had been destroyed and round 40 had been broken. The Ukrainian navy additionally confirmed the assault, saying there have been dozens of casualties.
In latest weeks, Russia has repeatedly struck the southern metropolis, which is within the Ukrainian controlled-part of a area that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed in violation of worldwide regulation final week. Not less than 14 individuals died in Russian missile strikes on condominium buildings in Zaporizhzhia on Thursday.
Part of the area at present in Russian management is house to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Energy Plant. Combating has repeatedly imperiled the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear energy station, and Ukrainian authorities shut down its final working reactor final month to stop a radiation catastrophe.
The Worldwide Atomic Power Company, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, mentioned Saturday that the Zaporizhzhia plant has since misplaced its final remaining exterior energy supply because of renewed shelling and is now counting on emergency diesel turbines.
Nobody has claimed accountability for the Crimea bridge assault, nevertheless it was a big blow to Russia and will result in an escalation of the battle. Some Russian lawmakers known as for Putin to declare a “counterterrorism operation,” somewhat than the time period “particular navy operation” that has downplayed the scope of preventing to abnormal Russians.
Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening safety for the bridge and for vitality infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and put Russia’s federal safety service, the FSB, answerable for the hassle.
Hours after the explosion, Russia’s Protection Ministry introduced that the air power chief, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, would now command all Russian troops in Ukraine. Surovikin, who this summer season was positioned answerable for troops in southern Ukraine, had led Russian forces in Syria and was accused of overseeing a bombardment that destroyed a lot of Aleppo.
The 19-kilometer (12-mile) Kerch Bridge, on a strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is an emblem of Moscow’s claims on Crimea and a vital hyperlink to the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The $3.6 billion bridge, the longest in Europe, is significant to sustaining Russia’s navy operations in southern Ukraine. Putin himself presided over the bridge’s opening in 2018.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a video deal with, not directly acknowledged the bridge assault however didn’t deal with its trigger.
“In the present day was not a foul day and largely sunny on our state’s territory,” he mentioned. “Sadly, it was cloudy in Crimea. Though it was additionally heat.”
Zelenskyy mentioned Ukraine needs a future “with out occupiers. All through our territory, specifically in Crimea.”
Zelenskyy additionally mentioned Ukrainian forces superior or held the road within the east and south, however acknowledged “very, very troublesome, very robust preventing” across the metropolis of Bakhmut within the jap Donetsk area, the place Russian forces have claimed latest positive factors.
Practice and car site visitors over the bridge was quickly suspended. Vehicle site visitors resumed Saturday afternoon on one of many two hyperlinks that remained intact, with the move alternating in every course, mentioned Crimea’s Russia-backed chief, Sergey Aksyonov.
Rail site visitors was resuming slowly. Two passenger trains left the Crimean cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol and headed towards the bridge Saturday night. Passenger ferry hyperlinks between Crimea and the Russian mainland had been being relaunched Sunday.
Whereas Russia seized areas north of Crimea early in its invasion of Ukraine and constructed a land hall to it alongside the Sea of Azov, Ukraine is urgent a counteroffensive to reclaim that territory. That Russian-held territory alongside the ocean consists of the Zaporizhzhia area.
The Crimean Peninsula is a well-liked vacation spot for Russian vacationers and residential to a Russian naval base. A Russian vacationer affiliation estimated that fifty,000 vacationers had been in Crimea on Saturday.
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