Seven killed by bridge blasts in Russian regions
MOSCOW: At least seven people were killed and 69 injured when two bridges were blown up in separate Russian regions bordering Ukraine ahead of planned peace talks aimed at ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine, Russian officials said on Sunday. A highway bridge over a railway in the Bryansk region was blown up at 10:50 pm on Saturday night just as a passenger train carrying 388 passengers to Moscow was passing underneath, Russian investigators said. Just four hours later, a railway bridge over a highway was blown up in the neighbouring Kursk region showering the road with parts of a freight train, the investigators said.
Russia's Investigative Committee, which probes serious crimes, linked the incidents and said explicitly that both bridges were blown up. In the Bryansk region, social media pictures and videos showed passengers trying to climb out of smashed carriages in the dark. Part of the passenger train was shown crushed under a collapsed road bridge and wrecked carriages lay beside the lines. "The bridge was blown up while the Klimovo-Moscow train was passing through with 388 passengers on board," Alexander Bogomaz, the region's governor, told Russian television.
The Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been subject to frequent attacks by Ukraine since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Both sides accuse the other of targeting civilians, and both deny such accusations. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the incidents, which took place just a day before the United States wants Russia and Ukraine to sit down to direct talks in Istanbul to discuss a possible end to a war which, according to Washington, has killed and injured at least 1.2 million people.
Ukraine's HUR military intelligence agency said on Sunday that an explosion had derailed a Russian military train hauling cargo and fuel trucks near the settlement of Yakymivka, in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region. The agency did not claim responsibility or attribute the explosion to anyone, though Ukraine has in the past claimed a series of attacks deep into Russia.
Russian politicians lined up to blame Ukraine, saying it was clearly sabotage aimed at derailing the peace talks which the United States has demanded. "This is definitely the work of the Ukrainian special services," the chairman of the defence committee of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Andrei Kartapolov, told the SHOT Telegram channel. "All this is aimed at toughening the position of the Russian Federation and stoking aggression before the negotiations. And also to intimidate people. But they won't succeed."
US President Donald Trump has demanded the sides make peace and he has threatened to walk away if they do not - potentially pushing responsibility for supporting Ukraine onto the shoulders of European powers. But as politicians talk of peace negotiations, the war is heating up, with swarms of drones launched by both Russia and Ukraine and Russian troops advancing at key points along the front in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine attacked Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers at a military base in Siberia on Sunday, the first such attack so far from the front lines more than 4,300 km away, according to pro-Russian bloggers. Unverified video and pictures posted on social media showed Russian strategic bombers - whose purpose is to drop nuclear bombs on distance targets - on fire at the Belaya air base north of Irkutsk.
A Ukrainian intelligence official said that Ukraine's domestic security agency, the SBU, conducted a large drone attack on over 40 Russian military aircraft. The Ukrainian source, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters in Kyiv, said the struck aircraft included Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukraine.
Igor Kobzev, the governor of Irkutsk, said that there had been a drone attack on a military unit near the village of Sredny in the Usolsky district, but did not mention strategic aviation. In video that he posted on Telegram, drones could be heard flying overhead and a giant plume of smoke rising into the sky. — Reuters
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Observer
21 hours ago
- Observer
Ukraine attack on Russia overshadows peace talks
ISTANBUL: Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul ended barely an hour after they began on Monday, a day after a massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's nuclear-capable strategic bombers. The talks — the second such direct contacts between the sides since 2022 — had already begun nearly two hours later than scheduled with no explanation of the delay. Although the atmosphere was subdued and dialogue brief, the talks did yield an agreement to conduct a new prisoner exchange and Ukraine said another round of talks was on the agenda. In Russia, before the talks began, angry war bloggers had called on Moscow to deliver a fearsome retaliatory blow against Kyiv after Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its most ambitious attacks of the war, targeting Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers in Siberia and elsewhere. Ukraine and Russia have issued starkly different assessments of the damage done to Russia's fleet of strategic bombers — a key element in its nuclear arsenal - but it was clear from publicly available satellite imagery that Moscow had suffered some serious equipment losses. "The eyes of the whole world are focused on the contacts here," Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had told the Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the start of talks as they faced off against each other on opposite sides of the room in the sumptuous Ciragan Palace by the Bosphorus. He said the aim of the meeting was to evaluate the conditions for a ceasefire, to discuss a possible meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents, and to look at more prisoner exchange opportunities. Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed Kyiv's delegation, announced after the talks that a new prisoner exchange had been agreed to follow up on the biggest prisoner swap of the war brokered at the last round of talks. He said the new exchange would focus on those severely injured in the war and on young people. Umerov also said that Moscow had handed its own draft peace accord to Ukraine and that Kyiv - which has drawn up its own version — would review the Russian document. Ukraine has proposed holding more talks before the end of June, but believes that only a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin can resolve the many issues of contention, Umerov said. Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Kyiv's delegation had handed over a list of children it said had been deported to Russia and which it wanted back. Moscow says such children were moved in order to protect them from fighting. The two sides had been expected on Monday to discuss their respective and wildly different ideas for what a full ceasefire and a longer term path to peace should look like amid pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has said the US could abandon its role as a mediator if there is no progress. But Umerov said Kyiv had been unable to react to Russia's proposals for peace because it had only seen them on Monday. While both countries, for different reasons, are keen to keep Trump engaged in the peace process, expectations of a breakthrough on Monday had been low. Ukraine regards Russia's approach to date as an attempt to force it to capitulate — something Kyiv says it will never do — while Moscow, which advanced on the battlefield in May at its fastest rate in six months, says Kyiv should submit to peace on Russian terms or face losing more territory. Putin set out his opening terms for an immediate end to the war last June: Ukraine must drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia. According to a proposed roadmap drawn up by Ukraine, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Kyiv wants no restrictions on its military strength after any peace deal, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow's forces, and wants reparations. — Reuters
Observer
21 hours ago
- Observer
UK to build attack subs as part of defence review
LONDON: Britain announced it will build 12 new attack submarines as it was set to unveil a major defence review to deal with "growing" Russian aggression and the changing nature of warfare. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that "there is greater instability on defence and security than there has been for many, many years, and greater threats." His Labour government will publish its Strategic Defence Review, a document that will assess threats facing the UK and make recommendations. The review warns that Britain is entering "a new era of threat" as drones and artificial intelligence transform modern warfare. "I wanted a review that told me the challenges we're actually facing and likely to face for the foreseeable future," Starmer told the BBC on Monday. "And the principles are clear: war-fighting readiness, integrating our forces... and a Nato first approach," he added. The UK has been racing to rearm in the face of the threat from Russia and fears that US President Donald Trump will no longer help protect Europe. Starmer said it would serve as "a blueprint for strength and security for decades to come". — AFP
Observer
21 hours ago
- Observer
Polish Nawrocki wins presidency in setback for pro-EU govt
WARSAW: Nationalist opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki narrowly won Poland's presidential election, results showed on Monday, delivering a big blow to the centrist government's efforts to cement Warsaw's pro-European orientation. In a victory for European conservatives inspired by US President Donald Trump, Nawrocki secured 50.89% of the vote, election commission data showed. The outcome presages more political gridlock as he is likely to use his presidential veto to thwart Prime Minister Donald Tusk's liberal policy agenda. Tusk's government has been seeking to reverse judicial reforms made by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government that lost power 18 months ago but President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has blocked those efforts. Nawrocki is likely to continue that pattern as president. The judicial reforms helped sour relations with Brussels under the PiS government. The European Union's top court ruled that a new procedure for appointing judges did not guarantee their impartiality, opening the way for rulings to be questioned, and Brussels sued Poland after its Constitutional Tribunal questioned the primacy of EU law. Nawrocki's rival, Rafal Trzaskowski, Tusk's ruling Civic Coalition (KO) candidate, had declared victory immediately after the publication of an exit poll late on Sunday that showed the result would be very close. "I'm sorry that I didn't manage to convince the majority of citizens of my vision of Poland," Trzaskowski said on X. "I congratulate Karol Nawrocki on winning the presidential election." Nawrocki, a conservative historian and amateur boxer who was backed by PiS, had presented the vote as a referendum on Tusk's 18-month-old government. "The referendum on the dismissal of the Tusk government has been won," PiS lawmaker Jacek Sasin wrote on X. Poland's blue-chip stock index had shed around 2% by early afternoon on Monday as investors anticipated more political paralysis. The zloty currency also fell versus the euro. Nawrocki's success follows two weeks after the election of centrist Nicusor Dan as Romania's president, a result that dealt a blow to hard-right and nationalist forces in central Europe. Nationalist and eurosceptic politicians in the region congratulated Nawrocki. George Simion, the defeated hard-right candidate in Romania's election, wrote on X "Poland WON" and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed a "fantastic victory". The result could lend momentum to the Czech Republic's eurosceptic opposition leader Andrej Babis, a former prime minister who leads opinion polls before an October election. Babis offered "warm congratulations" on X. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was convinced the EU could continue its "very good cooperation" with Poland. Krzysztof Izdebski, policy director at the Batory Foundation, said the result meant "Trump will have more to say in Polish politics".
