Russia-Ukraine war news: Ukraine strikes ‘Gate to Crimea’ bridge
Ukraine live briefing: Missiles strike ‘Gate to Crimea’ bridge, a critical link for Russia The city of Simferopol on the Crimean Peninsula, seen Monday. Russian officials said Ukrainian missiles hit a bridge connecting Russian-held territory in Kherson and the Crimean Peninsula. (Olga Maltseva/AFP/Getty Images)
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Ukrainian missiles hit a bridge connecting Russian-held territory in Kherson and the Crimean Peninsula, Russian officials said Thursday, blaming Ukrainian forces for the attack. RIA Novosti, a Russian state-operated news outlet, shared a video showing a large hole in the Chonhar bridge — known as the “Gate to Crimea” — surrounded by what appeared to be missile fragments. No casualties were reported.
The bridge is used by the Russian military to move between Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and other Russian-held areas.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
Ukraine fired four missiles at the bridge, which is expected to be “quickly restored” to normal operations, RIA Novosti reported, identifying one of the missiles as French-made. Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-installed head of Russian-occupied Kherson, said on Telegram that the attack was “another completely senseless action” from Kyiv.
The attack on the bridge represents a blow to Russian military logistics, Yuriy Sobolevsky, a Ukrainian regional official in Kherson, wrote on Telegram. He said that it could be a sign the Ukrainian counteroffensive may soon become “more dynamic” in the south. “There is no place on the territory of Kherson region where they could feel safe,” he said.
The United Nations added Russia’s armed forces to a list of global offenders for killing 136 children in Ukraine in 2022, according to a U.N. Security Council document according to a U.N. Security Council document seen by Reuters . It said Russian armed forces and affiliated groups carried out 480 attacks on schools and hospitals, and maimed 518 children. The Washington Post could not independently verify the findings. Responding to the report on Twitter, Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, said Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage “must be punished.”
A court in Moscow on Thursday rejected U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich’s appeal against his continued detention, an earlier decision to keep him in custody until August. Washington deemed the 31-year-old “ upholding an earlier decision to keep him in custody until August. Washington deemed the 31-year-old “ wrongfully detained ” after he was arrested in Russia on spying charges that his employer, the Wall Street Journal, has vehemently denied. He has been held for nearly three months.
Battleground updates
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of plotting a “terrorist act” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which the Kremlin rejected as “another lie.” The claims came which the Kremlin rejected as “another lie.” The claims came as officials in Moscow said the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi, would travel to Russia for meetings Friday.
Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Moscow will finish forming a “reserve army” by the end of June as well as a new army corps. Shoigu made the announcement in a call with Putin on Thursday. The defense minister had previously outlined efforts to conduct large-scale military restructuring, the Institute for the Study of War said Shoigu made the announcement in a call with Putin on Thursday. The defense minister had previously outlined efforts to conduct large-scale military restructuring, the Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis , but the ISW expects Russia will “struggle to fully staff and equip these large formations using existing force-generation processes.”
Global impact
India is ready to contribute in “any way we can to restore peace” between Russia and Ukraine, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a news conference alongside President Biden. New Delhi has India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a news conference alongside President Biden. New Delhi has rebuked Moscow for the war in Ukraine, but has not joined international sanctions and continues to buy energy and weapons from Russia.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz encouraged NATO to prioritize amping up Ukraine’s combat power as it fights to reclaim parts of the country. Kyiv’s supporters are working on “effective and long-term security guarantees,” he said.
From our correspondents
Delivering mail in war-ravaged Ukraine: ‘There are still people living here’: The trio of Ukrainian postal workers — a mail carrier, a driver and a security guard — wait for a lull in the shelling before entering Hulyaipole, a small city near the front line where they often make deliveries under fire, zigzagging along bumpy lanes in their small white-and-yellow van. On one particularly hair-raising route, between two neighboring towns, they say a quick prayer, slam the accelerator and race across a mile-long stretch of open road in front of Russian positions, Francesca Ebel and Kamila Hrabchuk report.
Clad in bulletproof vests, the workers make this dangerous journey three times a month to a city which has lost most of its population, plummeting from 12,000 to roughly 100. “Somebody has to do this job — and nobody wants to do it,” said the mail carrier, Natalia Hrinenko.
The post service to Hulyaipole is emblematic of the countless improvised lifelines put in place over the 16 months since Russia’s brutal invasion — to help the hundreds of people who are hanging on and subsisting, cut off from larger cities, under desperate conditions near some of the war’s fiercest fighting.
Source: The Washington Post
