Extract from ABC News
Ukrainian missiles have struck one of the few bridges linking the Crimea Peninsula with the Ukrainian mainland, cutting one of the main supply routes for Russian occupation forces in southern Ukraine as Kyiv pushes to drive them out.
Key points:
- Russian investigators said four missiles fired by Ukrainian forces hit the bridge
- Ukraine is attacking Russian supply lines to disrupt Moscow's defence of occupied territories
- Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin accused Russia's Defence Ministry of lying to Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Russian-installed administration in occupied parts of Ukraine's Kherson province, released video of himself on the Chonhar road bridge, where craters had been blasted through the asphalt.
"Another meaningless act perpetrated by the Kyiv regime on orders from London. It solves nothing as far as the special military operation is concerned," he said, vowing to repair the bridge and restore traffic.
He threatened to retaliate by targeting a bridge linking neighbouring Moldova to NATO-member Romania: "A very serious response is coming very soon."
The Chonhar bridge hit overnight is one of just a handful of access roads to Crimea, which is linked to the Ukrainian mainland by a narrow isthmus.
Alternative routes require hours-long detours over roads in poor condition.
Russia's RIA news agency quoted Russian-installed transport officials in Crimea as saying repairing it could take weeks.
Traffic queues built up and many bus routes were cancelled or severely delayed.
Motorist Igor Krivolapov, who was driving towards the Kherson region, said it added "three or four hours at least" to his commute.
A manager of the Dzhankoi bus station, Vladimir Tkachenko, said five bus routes had to be cancelled or postponed, with travel time increasing by one and-a-half to two hours.
"The ticket price remains the same," he said.
"Nine-hundred-and-fifty rubles from Dzhankoi bus station to Melitopol bus station, and 600 rubles from Dzhankoi bus station to Genichesk."
The bridge is beyond range of the battlefield rockets Ukraine has used for a year, but within reach of newly deployed weapons such as British and French air-launched cruise missiles, allowing Kyiv to hit logistics routes Russia had deemed safe just weeks ago.
The strike was "a blow to the military logistics of the occupiers", said Yuriy Sobolevsky, a Ukrainian official on the governing body for the Kherson region.
"The psychological impact on the occupiers and the occupying power is even more important. There is no place on the territory of Kherson region where they can feel safe," he said.
Russian investigators said four missiles had been fired by Ukrainian forces at the bridge, the RIA news agency reported.
It quoted a spokesman for military investigators as saying that markings found on the remains of one of the missiles suggested it had been made in France.
Ukraine is attacking Russian supply lines to disrupt Moscow's defence of occupied territory in the south, where Kyiv is in the early stages of its most ambitious counteroffensive of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged that progress has been slow so far, but says his troops are advancing cautiously into heavily mined and well-defended areas to minimise losses.
Mr Zelenskyy on Thursday accused Russia of planning a terrorist attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is in Russian-held territory near the front line. Moscow denied any such plan.
Russian mercenary boss escalates feud with Defence Ministry
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin added fuel to his feud with the top brass on Thursday, accusing them of lying to President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people about the scale of Russian losses and setbacks in Ukraine.
Mr Prigozhin, whose Wagner private militia spearheaded the Russian capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, is resisting an order for mercenary groups like his to sign contracts with the Defence Ministry before July 1.
In a series of emotional audio messages over two days, Mr Prigozhin escalated his repeated criticism of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, a close Putin ally, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff, by accusing them of hiding Russia's "very serious losses on the front" from Mr Putin.
"Total trash is being put on the President's desk. Shoigu and Gerasimov have a simple approach," Mr Prigozhin said in one message.
"The lie must be monstrous for people to believe it. That is what they are doing.
"It's all being hidden from everyone. Russia will wake up one day and learn that [Russian-annexed] Crimea has been handed over to the Ukrainians …
"They are misleading the Russian people and if it keeps on like this we'll be left without the most important thing: Russia."
There was no immediate response from the Defence Ministry, which has ignored previous complaints, in public at least.
But it repeatedly says Russian troops have repelled all the attacks that Ukraine has launched in its two-week-old counteroffensive, inflicting a heavy cost in equipment and manpower while suffering only small losses itself.
Report shows Russia and Ukraine forces killed children in conflict
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called out Russia on Thursday for killing 136 children in Ukraine in 2022, adding its armed forces to a global list of offenders, according to a report to the UN Security Council seen by Reuters.
The United Nations also verified that Russian armed forces and affiliated groups maimed 518 children and carried out 480 attacks on schools and hospitals.
Russian armed forces also used 91 children as human shields, according to the report.
Russia has denied targeting civilians since it invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The report also verified that Ukrainian armed forces killed 80 children, maimed 175 children and carried out 212 attacks on schools and hospitals.
The Ukrainian armed forces are not on the global offenders list.
Mr Guterres said in the report that he was "particularly shocked" by the high number of children killed and maimed, and the attacks on schools and hospitals by Russian armed forces.
He also said he was "particularly disturbed" by the high number of such offences against children by Ukrainian armed forces.
Russia's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
Mr Guterres's annual report to the 15-member Security Council on children and armed conflict covers the killing, maiming, sexual abuse, abduction or recruitment of children, denial of aid access and targeting of schools and hospitals.
The UN report on children and armed conflict verified the abduction of 91 children by Russian armed forces; all of them were subsequently released.
The report also verified the transfer of 46 children to Russia from Ukraine.
Moscow has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia, but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the war zone.
Reuters
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