Moscow: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday that it had detained five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over the explosion that damaged the Crimea bridge last Saturday, Interfax reported.
The FSB said the explosion was organised by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry and its director Kyrylo Budanov.
Flames and smoke rise from the Kerch bridge, linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.Credit:AP
Ukraine has not officially confirmed its involvement in the blast, but some Ukrainian officials have celebrated the damage.
The explosion on the 19-kilometre bridge destroyed one section of the road, temporarily halting road traffic. It also destroyed several fuel tankers on a train heading towards the annexed peninsula from neighbouring southern Russia.
The bridge, a prestige project personally opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, had become logistically vital to his military campaign, with supplies to Russian troops fighting in south Ukraine channelled through it.
Russian forces launched mass missile strikes against Ukrainian cities, including power supplies. At a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Monday, Putin said the strikes were a retaliation for the Crimea bridge blast, which he said had been organised by Ukraine’s secret services.
The Russian Investigative Committee at the scene of a damaged part of the Kerch Bridge.Credit:AP
Ukraine has pleaded for a rapid increase in Western military aid to defend against the missile strikes.
Explosions rocked the Russian-occupied southern towns of Kherson and Melitopol and air raid sirens blared over Kyiv on Wednesday, two days after Russia unleashed a barrage of missiles on the Ukrainian towns in a major escalation of the conflict.
In recent weeks, Moscow moved to annex new tracts of Ukraine after referendums widely denounced as illegal, mobilised hundreds of thousands of Russians to fight, and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear arms, stoking alarm in the West.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he doubted whether Putin would use a tactical nuclear weapon.
A man passes past a rocket crater at playground in city park in centre Kyiv following Monday’s attacks.Credit:AP
Putin is a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” Biden said in a CNN interview.
Asked how realistic he believed it would be for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon, Biden responded: “Well, I don’t think he will.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels the military alliance has not noticed any change in Russia’s nuclear posture following the threats.
Ukraine’s military said its forces drove Russian troops out of several settlements near the Russian-occupied town of Beryslav in the Kherson region.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts in Kherson or Melitopol which were reported by Russian media.
Also in the south, Russian missiles destroyed buildings in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight but there were no reports of casualties, regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said on the Telegram messaging app.
Reuters
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