Extract from ABC News
A drone has hit an ammunition depot in central Crimea on Saturday, sparking an explosion, less than a week after a strike on a key bridge linking the peninsula to Russia prompted Moscow to exit a landmark grain export deal and pound Ukraine's seaports with drones and missiles.
Key points:
- Rail services across the Crimea bridge have reportedly been halted
- Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Kyiv considers the Crimea bridge as an "enemy object" and wants it to be "neutralised"
- Russian authorities blame the death of a Russian war reporter on a Ukrainian attack using cluster munition
Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of the territory that Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, said in a Telegram post that there were no immediate reports of casualties but that authorities were evacuating civilians within a five-kilometre radius of the blast site.
Mr Aksyonov claimed Ukraine to be behind the attack, saying an "enemy" drone had detonated the ammunition depot on the Krasnohvardiiske district, an area that lies inland at the centre of Crimea.
The Ukrainian military appeared to confirm it had launched the drone strike, claiming through its press service that it had destroyed an oil depot and Russian arms warehouses in the Krasnohvardiiske area, although without specifying what weapons were used.
Rail services across the Kerch bridge have also reportedly been halted. The bridge, often referred to as the Crimea bridge is a vital logistics link for Russian forces, and is also heavily used by Russian tourists who flock to Crimea in summer.
"The goal is to return Crimea," Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, according to a transcript published by his office on Saturday of a speech addressing the Aspen Security Forum on Friday.
He said Kyiv considers the Crimea bridge — opened by Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2018 — as an "enemy object" and wants it to be "neutralised".
Mr Zelenskyy said that the bridge was a legitimate target because it was a military supply route for Russia.
"This is the route used to feed the war with ammunition and this is being done on a daily basis," he said.
A local news channel based in central Crimea on Saturday posted videos showing plumes of smoke looming above rooftops and fields near Oktyabrs'ke, a small settlement next to an oil depot and a small military airport, as loud explosions rumbled in the background.
In one of the videos, a man's voice is heard saying that the smoke and blast noises appear to be coming from the direction of the airport.
The explosion in Krasnohvardiiske came less than a week after a Ukrainian strike on Monday on the Kerch bridge, which killed two people and left a section of the roadway hanging perilously.
Moscow on the same day ended its participation in a wartime deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to be exported through the Black Sea and later pounded Ukraine's seaports with drones and missiles after vowing "retribution" for the attack on the bridge.
Russia blames journalist death on cluster munition
A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded on Saturday in what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions, prompting outrage from politicians.
The Defence Ministry said the wounded journalists were evacuated from the battlefield after coming under fire in Ukraine's south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region.
It said Rostislav Zhuravlev, who worked for state news agency RIA, died while being transferred.
The ministry did not provide evidence that Ukraine had used cluster munitions in the incident, and Reuters was not able to verify the assertion.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced what she called "criminal terror" by Ukraine and said, without providing evidence, that the attack appeared deliberate.
"Those responsible for the brutal reprisal against a Russian journalist will inevitably suffer well-deserved punishment. The entire measure of responsibility will be shared by those who supplied cluster munitions to their Kyiv protégés," she said.
No comment was immediately available from Ukraine on the incident.
The Kremlin-installed head of the occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yevhen Balitsky, claimed in a Telegram post that the journalists were travelling in a civilian vehicle that was hit by shells.
Ukraine received cluster bombs from the United States this month, but it has pledged to use them only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers.
Many countries ban the weapons because they disperse bomblets that rain shrapnel over a wide area and can pose a risk to civilians.
Some typically fail to explode immediately, but can blow up years later.
Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy speaker of Russia's upper house of parliament, said the use of cluster munitions was "inhuman" and the responsibility lay both with Ukraine and the United States.
Leonid Slutsky, a party leader in the lower house, called it a "monstrous crime".
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, tweeted: "I wonder what US public opinion thinks of their country
Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed at least two civilians and wounded four others on Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported.
A 52-year-old woman died in Kupiansk, a town in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, while another person was killed in a cross-border Russian attack on a village in the neighboring Sumy province.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian attacks on 11 regions across the country on Friday and overnight had killed at least eight civilians and wounded others.
ABC/wires
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