Ukrainian drone attack on ammunition depot in Crimea prompts evacuation, bridge closure; Putin and Lukashenko set to meet in St Petersburg
A drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted authorities to evacuate everyone within a 3-mile (5km) radius and briefly suspend road traffic on the Kerch Bridge linking the occupied peninsula to Russia on Saturday, the Moscow-installed regional governor said.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said the bridge, which was also temporarily closed earlier this week after an attack on it, “brings war not peace” and is therefore a military target.
Air defence systems were deployed early on Sunday in repelling another Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, Oleh Kiper, governor of the Odesa region, said on the Telegram channel, warning people not to film the air combat. Unesco has condemned Russia’s attack on the historic centre of Odesa, which is protected under the World Heritage Convention.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko will meet on Sunday in St Petersburg, the Kremlin said, two days after Moscow warned that any aggression against its neighbour and staunchest ally would be considered an attack on Russia.
Russia criticised the US after the alleged death of a war correspondent for Russia’s RIA news agency after what was claimed to have been the use of cluster bombs near the frontline in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. Moscow called it “a heinous, premeditated crime” committed by western powers and Kyiv, vowing a “response” against those to blame.
Russia’s arrest of Igor Girkin, a former Russian intelligence officer and leading nationalist military blogger, will probably infuriate elements in the military as well as his fellow bloggers, according to UK intelligence.
The US plans to announce a new military aid package for Ukraine worth up to $400m as Ukraine’s counteroffensive grinds on, it was reported. Zelenskiy also said Ukraine’s counteroffensive was about to “gain pace”.
The Polish deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, has said his meeting with the Russian ambassador to Poland – after he was summoned after Vladimir Putin alleged Poland harboured territorial ambitions in western Ukraine – was “very brief”.
President Zelenskiy said he spoke with Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the phone about sustaining the Black Sea grain initiative as well as agreements reached during the Vilnius summit and “further actions regarding the integration of Ukraine into Nato”.
Ukraine’s air defence units shot down five Russian combat and nine reconnaissance drones over the past 24 hours, Euromaidan Press has reported, citing the air force.
The director of the CIA has been made a cabinet member by the US president, Joe Biden, who said the agency has been providing “good intelligence, delivered with honesty and integrity”.
