The Crimean Bridge, a key and symbolic infrastructure linking Russia to the peninsula annexed in 2014 to the detriment of Ukraine, was partially destroyed on Saturday, October 8, by a huge explosion attributed by Moscow to a truck bomb. Franceinfo takes stock of the day’s news on the frontline of the war in Ukraine.
The Crimean Bridge partly destroyed by an explosion
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 two spans of one of the two collapsed road lanes.
Investigators said the early morning attack killed three people. Crimean authorities announced in the afternoon that traffic had resumed for cars and buses on the bridge’s only road lane that remained intact. Heavy goods vehicles will now make the crossing on ferries. Rail traffic was to be restored in the evening.
This concrete bridge, built at great expense on the orders of Vladimir Putin to connect the annexed peninsula to Russian territory, is used in particular to transport military equipment from the Russian army fighting in Ukraine. the adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attributed the explosion to an internal struggle between the FSB and the Russian army. If Moscow has for the moment refrained from directly accusing Ukraine, the head of the regional parliament installed by Russia, Vladimir Konstantinov denounced a coup “Ukrainian vandals”.
A new commander for the Russian army
Since early September, Russian forces have been forced to retreat at many points on the front. In particular, they were forced to withdraw from the Kharkiv region and to retreat to the Kherson region.
A sign of discontent in high places over the conduct of operations, Moscow on Saturday appointed a new man at the head of its offensive in Ukraine. “Army General Sergei Surovikin was appointed commander of the combined grouping of troops in the area of the special military operation” in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram. The 55-year-old is a veteran of the civil war in Tajikistan in the 1990s, the second Chechnya war in the 2000s and the Russian intervention in Syria launched in 2015. The decision comes after a series of setbacks on on the ground and signs of growing discontent within the elites over the conduct of the conflict.
Zaporizhia nuclear power plant cut off from power supply
Ukraine’s nuclear power plant has lost its last external power source due to renewed bombing, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. Therefore, this site occupied and then annexed by Russia relies on emergency generators, said the UN body. “The connection was cut around one o’clock in the morning, local time”said the IAEA, which says it is based on “official information from Ukraine”as well as on top “reports from his team” of four experts present in the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, at the center of a showdown for months in southern Ukraine.