Latest news with #UkraineAttack
Sky News
2 hours ago
- General
- Sky News
Ukraine war: Underwater explosives strike bridge linking Russia to Crimea, Kyiv says
Ukraine says it struck the road and rail bridge linking Russia and Crimea with underwater explosives. A video of the explosion on Kerch Bridge was posted on Ukraine's security service (SBU) X account. The planned attack took "several months" of work and involved detonating 1,100kg of explosives overnight, which "severely damaged" the foundations of the bridge, according to the SBU. Russia is yet to respond but authorities say bridge crossings have restarted after it was closed for most of the day on Tuesday. Vladimir Putin opened the 12-mile bridge in 2018. It holds symbolic and strategic significance for Russia, which uses it to transport supplies and weapons to its forces in occupied Crimea. It is the third time Ukraine has hit the structure after attacks in 2022 and 2023. The latest incident comes days after Ukraine launched an audacious drone attack on air bases inside Russia over the weekend. Mr Zelenskyy said the attack on 40 bomber aircraft at multiple bases across Russia would "undoubtedly be in history books". 0:46 Drones were smuggled into the country and launched remotely off the back of trucks, security sources said. On Sunday, two railway bridges collapsed in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions. Russia blamed Ukraine, which has not commented.
South China Morning Post
4 hours ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
Ukraine says it attacked Crimean Bridge, as Russia halts traffic
Ukraine said it attacked the Crimean Bridge with explosives as Russia closed traffic on the route linking the annexed Black Sea peninsula with the Russian mainland. Agents planted mines on underwater supports and detonated them on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Security Service, known as the SBU, said in a statement on Telegram. The SBU said the operation took place over several months and left the bridge in an emergency condition, which could not be independently verified. Russia closed traffic on the bridge for a second time on Tuesday, without explaining the reason for the suspension, the Interfax news agency reported. The bridge was originally closed for more than three hours starting in the morning local time, the report said. Maritime passenger transportation was temporarily suspended in Sevastopol, the city's road and transport infrastructure authority said, also without explaining what prompted the interruption, according to Interfax. The attack comes amid an increase in Kyiv's strikes on Russian military and infrastructure targets, including one of Ukraine's most audacious aerial attacks inside the country. It also comes one day after talks held in Istanbul failed to bring the Kremlin's more-than-three-year-long invasion of Ukraine any closer to an end.
Washington Post
8 hours ago
- General
- Washington Post
As Russia reels from drone attack, Ukraine targets vital Crimea Bridge
Ukraine on Tuesday again attacked the symbolic Crimea Bridge across the Kerch strait, which connects the illegally annexed peninsula to the Russian mainland. The attack came 48 hours after Kyiv's unprecedented assault on air bases deep inside Russian territory which sent shock waves across the country. Ukraine's Security Service claimed in a statement that several pillars were damaged in an early morning operation, after spending months of covertly planting explosives on support structures beneath the water.
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
Ukraine hits bridge linking Crimea to Russia with underwater explosives
Ukraine has detonated a massive underwater blast targeting the key road and rail bridge connecting the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia, damaging its underwater pillars. The operation, claimed by Kyiv's SBU security service, is the second high-profile operation by Ukraine in days striking significant Russian assets after a sophisticated drone raid on Moscow's strategic bomber fleet on Sunday. The attack came as Ukraine confirmed it had been invited to the Nato summit later this month, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned it would be a 'victory' for Russia if it was not present. The latest strike on the 12-mile-long Kerch Bridge – a prestige project of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, which he opened in 2018 – comes amid what appear to be determined efforts by Ukraine to change the narrative promoted by the Trump administration that Kyiv holds few cards in the war. The mining of the bridge, which is heavily defended by Russian forces, follows the audacious long-range drone attack on airbases deep in side Russia, which Zelenskyy claimed had damaged '34% of [Russia's] strategic cruise missile carriers'. According to a statement from the SBU the operation against the bridge – the third in a series of strikes amid at disabling the key logistics route – had been planned for several months and involved the equivalent of more than a metric tonne of TNT, which it said had 'severely damaged' the base of the bridge supports. It is the third time that Ukraine has targeted the bridge since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022. In October 2022, a truck exploded on the bridge, while in July 2023, the SBU said it had blown up a part of the bridge using an experimental naval drone. Both times, Russia repaired the damaged sections. Lt Gen Vasyl Maliuk of the SBU, who supervised the latest operation, described the bridge as 'an absolutely legitimate target, especially considering that the enemy used it as a logistical artery to supply its troops'. He added: 'Crimea is Ukraine, and any manifestations of occupation will receive our tough response.' The SBU published footage showing a blast coming out of the water and debris flying, along with a photo of some damage to the side of the bridge. Road traffic on the bridge linking Russia and the Crimean peninsula had been temporarily suspended, Russian authorities said on Telegram on Tuesday. Russian state media reported it had been closed to traffic for about four hours. The attack on the bridge came as Russia said on Tuesday said it was wrong to expect a quick breakthrough in Ukraine talks, a day after Moscow rejected Kyiv's call for an unconditional ceasefire at negotiations in Istanbul – more than three years into Russia's offensive that has killed tens of thousands on both sides and forced millions from their homes in eastern Ukraine. The sides agreed on a large-scale swap of captured soldiers and exchanged their roadmaps to peace, or so-called 'memorandums', at the discussions, which lasted under two hours. 'The settlement issue is extremely complex and involves a large number of nuances,' the Kremlin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Tuesday. 'It would be wrong to expect immediate solutions and breakthroughs.' Peskov was speaking as Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy's chief of staff, arrived in the US along with the deputy prime minister Yulia Svrydenko to press for tougher sanctions on Russia. 'We plan to talk about defence support and the situation on the battlefield, strengthening sanctions against Russia,' Yermak said on Telegram. Moscow is demanding Ukraine pull its troops out of four eastern and southern regions that Moscow claims to have annexed, as a precondition to pausing its offensive, according to the document handed to the Ukrainians that was published by Russian state media. Kyiv had pressed for a full and unconditional ceasefire. Russia instead offered a partial truce of two to three days in some areas of the frontline, its top negotiator said after the talks. Peskov also dismissed the idea of a summit between the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and the US. 'In the near future, it is unlikely,' he told reporters, adding that such a summit could happen only after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reached an 'agreement'. The White House had said on Monday that the US president, Donald Trump, was 'open' to the idea, which is also backed by Zelenskyy and by Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Zelenskyy's attendance at the Nato summit in The Hague from 24 to 26 June was welcomed by the Ukrainian president after reported misgivings over the potential for the renewal of friction between Zelenskyy and Trump administration officials. 'We were invited to the Nato summit. I think this is important,' Zelenskyy said on Monday after he held a meeting with Nato's secretary general, Mark Rutte, in Vilnius. Agencies contributed to this report
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Ukraine strikes Russia's strategic Kerch Bridge to Crimea
Ukraine has launched an audacious underwater attack on Putin's prized Kerch Bridge to Crime a with Kyiv claiming the link has been left in a 'state of disrepair'. Around 1100 kilograms of explosives are said to have been detonated early this morning, damaging underwater pillars of the 12-mile-long bridge, a key supply route for Russian forces invading Ukraine. Footage shows smoke billowing over the bridge following the blast. Head of the SBU, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, said: 'We previously hit the Crimean Bridge twice in 2022 and 2023. So today we continued this tradition underwater. No illegal Russian facilities have a place on the territory of our state. Therefore, the Crimean Bridge is a completely legitimate target, especially considering that the enemy used it as a logistical artery to supply its troops. Crimea is Ukraine, and any manifestations of occupation will receive our tough response.' Russian forces temporarily closed the bridge this morning, according to Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda. No casualties have been reported. It comes after Ukrainian drones struck multiple military airbases in Russia on Sunday. The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Back in 2023, the Kremlin downed two Ukrainian missiles that were aimed at Russia's Kerch bridge to Crimea. In 2022, a part of the bridge was blown up after a truck exploded on it, with Russia blaming the blast on Ukraine. The crossing carries heavy significance for Moscow, both logistically and psychologically, as a key artery for military and civilian supplies and as an assertion of Kremlin control of the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014. The attack on the Kerch bridge comes a day after delegations from Kyiv and Moscow held a second round of direct talks on the possibility of ending the war in Ukraine. The two sides exchanged their visions of what a peace settlement could look like at the negotiations, mediated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, which once again did not yield a ceasefire. Despite the flurry of diplomacy urged on by US President Donald Trump, their demands have thus far been irreconcilable. Hours after the talks concluded, Russian state news agencies published the full list of Moscow's peace terms that confirmed its maximalist claims. Russia has repeatedly demanded it retains territory in southern and eastern Ukraine that it occupies and for Kyiv to cede even more land. Moscow in 2022 annexed four Ukrainian regions - Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - despite not having full control over its roadmap to peace, something what Russia calls a 'memorandum', it demanded Ukraine to pull its forces out of parts of those regions that its army still controls as a prerequisite to any peace settlement. Russia also annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and fully controls it since then. Ukraine has said it will never recognise its occupied territories, including Crimea, as Russian. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv may be forced to try to secure their return through diplomatic means - effectively conceding that Russia could maintain control over some land in any peace deal. The Russian memorandum starts from a clause saying that all Moscow-occupied territories in Ukraine must be recognized. This is a breaking news story, more to follow.
