Russia launches largest air attack on Ukraine
Russia has carried out the largest air attack on Ukraine since the start of the war. Hundreds of missiles and drones were fired, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens more. The BBC's James Waterhouse spoke to Ingrid Hipkiss.
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RNZ News
7 hours ago
- RNZ News
Ukraine strikes bridge connecting Russia to Crimea with underwater explosives
By Christian Edwards , Svitlana Vlasova and Anna Chernova , CNN Ukraine's SBU on June 3 published a video showing a large underwater explosion beneath the Kerch Bridge. Photo: SBU/Telegram via CNN Newsource Ukraine said on Tuesday that it had hit the bridge connecting Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula with explosives planted underwater, in its third attack on the vital supply line for Moscow's forces since the full-scale war began in 2022. Ukraine's security service, the SBU, said on Telegram that its agents had mined the piers of the road and rail Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Bridge, and detonated the first explosive at 4.44am Tuesday. The whole operation took several months, it added. The agency said it had used 1100 kilograms of explosives which "severely damaged" the underwater pillars supporting the bridge. Traffic on the bridge was suspended early Tuesday morning, then again mid-afternoon, before resuming shortly before 6pm local time. Although the scale of the damage was not immediately clear, Tuesday's attack is the latest example of the SBU's attempts to blindside Moscow and demonstrate that there are costs to continuing its war. On Sunday, the SBU launched an audacious drone attack on Moscow's fleet of nuclear-capable bombers, stationed at various Russian airfields thousands of miles away from Ukraine. An image released by the SBU showed damage to the Crimean Bridge. Photo: Security Service of Ukraine via CNN Newsource Vasul Malyuk, the head of the SBU, said that attack caused an estimated US$7 billion in damage and had struck 34 percent of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers, which have been used to pummel Ukrainian cities throughout the war. The SBU said Malyuk had also overseen Tuesday's attack. "God loves the Trinity, and the SBU always sees things through to the end and never does the same thing twice. We previously struck the Crimean Bridge twice, in 2022 and 2023. So today we continued this tradition, this time underwater," Malyuk said. He stressed that the bridge is a "completely legitimate target," since Russia uses it "as a logistical artery to supply its troops" fighting in mainland Ukraine. As well as serving as a vital supply line for Moscow's troops, the Crimean Bridge also has huge symbolic value for President Vladimir Putin, embodying his objective to bind the Ukrainian peninsula to Russia. Built after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin opened the bridge in 2018. The project cost around US$3.7 billion. Tuesday's attack marks the third time that Ukraine has targeted the bridge since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022. In October of that year, a fuel truck exploded on the bridge, engulfing a part of it in flames. In July 2023, the SBU said it had blown up a part of the bridge using an experimental sea drone. Both times, Russia moved quickly to repair the damaged sections. As well as suspending traffic on the bridge, Russian authorities temporarily halted maritime traffic in the waters off Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, according to state media RIA Novosti. - CNN
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
Trump may be forced to act as Putin refuses to budge in Russia-Ukraine peace talks
US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Mandel Ngan and Maxim Shemetov / various sources / AFP Analysis: So, Russia and Ukraine are still as far apart as ever , with the two warring countries unable to make a significant breakthrough in direct talks in Istanbul. While there was agreement to exchange more prisoners, Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided over how to bring the costly and bitter Ukraine war to an end. Russia has shown itself to be particularly uncompromising, handing Ukrainian negotiators a memorandum re-stating its maximalist, hardline terms which would essentially amount to a Ukrainian surrender. Expectations were always low for a Kremlin compromise. But Moscow appears to have eliminated any hint of a readiness to soften its demands. The Russian memorandum again calls on Ukraine to withdraw from four partially occupied regions that Russia has annexed but not captured: a territorial concession that Kyiv has repeatedly rejected. It says Ukraine must accept strict limits on its armed forces, never join a military alliance, host foreign troops or aquire nuclear weapons. It would be Ukrainian demilitarisation in its most hardline form, unpalatable to Ukraine and much of Europe, which sees the country as a barrier against further Russian expansion. Other Russian demands include the restoration of full diplomatic and economic ties, specifically that no reparations will be demanded by either side and that all Western sanctions on Russia be lifted. It is a Kremlin wish-list that, while familiar, speaks volumes about how Moscow continues to imagine the future of Ukraine as a subjugated state in the thrall of Russia, with no significant military of its own nor real independence. This uncompromising position comes despite two important factors which may have given the Kremlin pause. Firstly, Ukraine has developed the technical capability to strike deep inside Russia, despite its staggering disparity of territory and resources. The stunning drone strikes recently targeting Russian strategic bombers at bases thousands of miles from Ukraine is a powerful illustration of that. Ukraine, it seems, has some cards after all, and is using them effectively. Secondly - and arguably more dangerously for Moscow - the Kremlin's latest hardline demands come despite US President Donald Trump's increasing frustrations with his own Ukraine peace efforts. Trump has already expressed annoyance with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who he said had gone "absolutely MAD" after massive Russian strikes on Ukraine last week. But now, Trump himself is under pressure as a cornerstone of his second term foreign policy - bringing a rapid end the Ukraine war - looks decidedly shaky. There are powerful levers to pull if Trump chooses, like increasing US military aid or imposing tough new sanctions, such as those overwhelmingly supported in the US Senate. One of the key backers of a cross-party senate bill that aims to impose "crippling" new measures on Moscow, Senator Richard Blumenthal, accused Russia of "mocking peace efforts" at the Istanbul talks and in a carefully worded post on X accused the Kremlin of "playing Trump and America for fools." It is unclear at the moment how the mercurial US president will react, or what - if anything - he will do. But the outcome of the Ukraine war, specifically the brokering of peace deal to end it, has become inextricably linked with the current administration in the White House. The fact that Putin has once again dug in his heels and presented an uncompromising response to calls for peace, may now force Trump to act. - CNN
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Russia offers three-day ceasefire in Ukraine war to ‘collect the dead'
Ukraine's First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya (left,) Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, deputy head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence Vadym Skibitskyi, adviser to the Head of the Office of the President Oleksandr Bevz and Foreign Ministry spokesman George Tykhyi give statements to the press at the Ciragan Palace after the second round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey on June 2. Photo / Getty Images Russia offered a limited ceasefire to collect the bodies of fallen soldiers from the battlefield on Monday as a second round of peace talks ended without a clear breakthrough on a wider truce. Vladimir Putin's chief negotiator suggested localised pauses in fighting could be used by both sides to retrieve
