Deadly Russian shelling hit the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia overnight Saturday-Sunday, killing many civilians the day after the partial destruction by an explosion of the Crimean Bridge built by Russia after the annexation of the peninsula.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin was convening his Security Council on Monday. The explosion that hit and partially destroyed the bridge connecting the annexed peninsula to Russia, which kyiv had previously pointed out as illegitimacy, is another major setback for Russia, at a time when its forces are struggling in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army and special services (SBU) in Kyiv have neither confirmed nor denied their involvement, and President Volodymyr Zelensky only quipped in a video about the “cloudy” weather on Saturday in Crimea — a probable allusion to the smoke from the fire — “although it was also hot there”.
The Russian president has not publicly reacted.
But in the night, Russian strikes on apartment buildings in Zaporijjia killed between 12 and 17 according to the reports, three days after previous bombardments which had killed 17 in this city in southern Ukraine.
A final report from the Zaporizhia regional administration reported 13 dead and 60 injured, including women and children. A first assessment of the municipal council had initially reported 17 dead.
President Volodymyr Zelensky had previously reported 12 dead and 49 people, including six children, taken to hospital.
” Pure evil “
” Any sense. Absolute evil. Terrorists and savages. From the one who gave this order to the one who executed it. Everyone has a responsibility. Before the law and before the people,” the Ukrainian president wrote on his Telegram account.
This Russian strike “destroyed private apartments, where people lived, slept without attacking anyone,” Zelensky added.
The Ukrainian Air Force said four cruise missiles, two missiles fired from fighter jets and other anti-aircraft type missiles were used against the city.
The Russian army said on Sunday that it had carried out strikes with “high-precision weapons” against units of “foreign mercenaries” near Zaporizhia.
Zaporijjia is close to the nuclear power plant of the same name, at the center of a showdown for several months which required its shutdown and raised fears of a nuclear accident. This site has again lost its external power source due to bombardments and relies on emergency generators, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on Saturday.
In the aftermath of the huge explosion on the Crimean bridge, divers were to examine the structure on Sunday to assess the structural damage, announced Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khousnullin, with “first results” expected during the day.
Automobile and rail traffic had partially resumed on Saturday, a few hours after the explosion which had collapsed on several spans one of the tracks of this bridge built at great expense, inaugurated by Vladimir Putin in 2018.
The heavy goods vehicles, however, were initially sent back to ferries.
A train convoy of fuel tank cars had also caught fire on the bridge.
Russia’s transport ministry, however, said on Sunday that passenger trains from Crimea to Russia were “running according to the usual plan”.
Russian authorities attributed the explosion, which killed three people on Saturday morning, to a truck bomb owned by a resident of Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Moscow did not immediately blame Ukraine for the attack and Ukrainian officials did not formally claim responsibility.
However, kyiv had repeatedly threatened to hit this bridge symbol of the annexation of Crimea, which is also used to supply Russian troops in Ukraine.
Three dead
CCTV footage shared on social media showed a powerful explosion as several vehicles drove across the bridge, including a truck that Russian authorities suspect was the source of the blast.
On other shots, we can see a convoy of tank cars in flames on the railway part of the bridge, and several spans of one of the two collapsed road lanes.
According to investigators, the attack which occurred on Saturday morning killed three people: the driver of the truck as well as a man and a woman who were traveling by car, whose bodies were taken out of the water.
The Russian army, in difficulty on the Kherson front in southern Ukraine, assured Saturday that the supply of its troops was not threatened.
Ukraine has struck several bridges in the Kherson region in recent months to disrupt Russian supplies, as well as military bases in Crimea, attacks for which it did not admit responsibility until months later.
Since early September, Russian forces have been forced to retreat at many points on the front. In particular, they had to withdraw from the Kharkiv region (north-east) and retreat to that of Kherson.
Faced with a galvanized Ukrainian army strong in Western arms supplies, Mr. Putin decreed at the end of September the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions although Moscow only partially controls them.
A sign of discontent in high places over the conduct of operations, Moscow announced on Saturday that it had appointed a new man at the head of its “special military operation” in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, 55.