Ukraine: at least 17 dead in new bombardments on Zaporizhia

Europe 1 with AFP 09:22, October 09, 2022

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At least 17 people were killed Sunday in bombardments on the city of Zaporijjia (southern Ukraine), three days after previous strikes which had left 17 dead, we learned from official sources.

"After a night missile attack on Zaporizhia (...), 17 people died", according to an initial report, said Anatoliy Kourtev, secretary of the city council of the city, on his Telegram account.

The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has been at the center of a standoff for months in southern Ukraine, which has required its shutdown, has again lost its external power source due to bombardments and relies on emergency generators, alerted Saturday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) whose mission is on site.

The strikes hit houses and multi-storey apartment buildings, he said.

Thursday, the city had already been the target of seven missiles in the early morning, killing seventeen people.

Sunday's strikes come the day after a huge explosion, attributed by Moscow to a truck bomb, on the Crimean Bridge, a key and symbolic infrastructure linking Russia to the peninsula annexed in 2014 to the detriment of Ukraine.

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Reopening of the Crimean Bridge 

The Crimean Bridge has reopened to road and rail traffic after being partially destroyed by a huge explosion attributed by Moscow to a truck bomb on Saturday.

“Rail traffic on the Crimean bridge has been fully restored,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khousnulline told the press, according to the Ria Novosti agency, without specifying the time.

"All scheduled trains will pass in full," he added.

He clarified on his Telegram account that this recovery concerned both “passenger and freight trains”.

"We have the technical capabilities for that," he said.

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A railway line operator had announced a few hours earlier that two trains had already left for Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

The Crimean authorities had announced in the afternoon that traffic had resumed for cars and buses on the bridge's only road lane that remained intact.

This was confirmed by Marat Khousnoulline, specifying that the second way would be operational again "in the near future" and that the conclusions of the observations carried out on Saturday on the damaged parts would be known on Sunday.

Ferries will take over, especially for the crossing of heavy goods vehicles.

"We do not foresee a shortage," noted the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Russian news agency Tass had earlier reported that rail traffic had fully resumed for passengers and goods but with delays.

Three dead 

CCTV footage shared on social media showed a powerful explosion as several vehicles drove across the bridge, including a truck that Russian authorities suspect was the source of the blast.

On other shots, we can see a convoy of tank cars in flames on the railway part of the bridge, and two spans of one of the two collapsed road lanes.

Investigators say the early morning attack left three people dead: the driver of the truck and two people - a man and a woman - who were driving near the blast and whose bodies were pulled out of the water. .

After having seemed, by an ironic tweet on Saturday morning, to recognize a Ukrainian attack in half-words, the adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Mykhaïlo Podoliak later returned to a "Russian track".

In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky contented himself with saying, referring to the annexed peninsula: "Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea", not to mention the explosion.

The Investigative Committee said it had established the identity of the owner of the truck bomb, a resident of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, and that investigations were underway.

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This concrete bridge, built at great expense on the orders of Vladimir Putin to connect the annexed peninsula to Russian territory, is used in particular to transport military equipment from the Russian army fighting in Ukraine.

If Ukraine is behind the fire and explosion on the Crimean Bridge, the fact that such crucial infrastructure so far from the front could be damaged by Ukrainian forces would be a snub for Moscow.

"Terrorist Nature"

"Crimea. The bridge. The beginning. Everything that is illegal must be destroyed, everything that has been stolen must be returned to Ukraine", commented in the morning Mr. Podoliak.

In a statement issued later by the presidency, however, he attributed the explosion to an internal struggle between the FSB and the Russian army.

"It should be noted that the truck that exploded, by all indications, entered the bridge from the Russian side. So it is in Russia that we have to look for the answers (...) all this clearly indicates a Russian track," he said.

The spokeswoman for Russian diplomacy Maria Zakharova considered, however, that the reactions in kyiv showed the "terrorist nature" of the Ukrainian authorities.

The Russian army, in difficulty on the Kherson front in southern Ukraine, assured that the supply of its troops was not threatened: "The supply (...) is carried out continuously and complete, along a land corridor and partially by sea".

Ukraine has struck several bridges in the Kherson region in recent months to disrupt Russian supplies, as well as military bases in Crimea, attacks for which it did not admit responsibility until months later.

If Moscow has for the moment been careful not to accuse Ukraine directly, the head of the regional parliament installed by Russia, Vladimir Konstantinov, denounced a coup "Ukrainian vandals".

Peninsular leader Sergei Aksionov tried to reassure that Crimea had a month's supply of fuel and two months' food.

New Commander

Russia has always maintained that the bridge poses no risk despite fighting in Ukraine, but in the past has threatened kyiv with reprisals if Ukrainian forces attack this infrastructure or others in Crimea.

Since early September, Russian forces have been forced to retreat at many points on the front.

In particular, they had to withdraw from the Kharkiv region (north-east) and retreat to that of Kherson.

Faced with a galvanized Ukrainian army strong in Western arms supplies, Vladimir Putin decreed at the end of September the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reservists and the annexation of four Ukrainian regions although Moscow only partially controls them.

A sign of discontent in high places over the conduct of operations, Moscow announced on Saturday that it had appointed a new man at the head of its "special military operation" in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, 55.

Finally, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, at the center of a standoff for months in southern Ukraine, which required its shutdown, again lost its external power source due to bombardments and s relies on emergency generators, alerted Saturday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) whose mission is on site.

The toll of the bombings on Thursday on the eponymous city has increased, the Ukrainian emergency service said late Saturday evening, announcing at least 17 dead.