Cincunri Sakia

Rabu, 19 Juli 2023

Russia-Ukraine war live: Moscow attacks Odesa for second night; fire at Crimea military base sparks evacuations - The Guardian

From 2h ago

Russia launched strikes on Ukraine‘s southern Odesa region, the local governor said early Wednesday, the second consecutive night of attacks on the area since Moscow pulled out of a grain export deal.

AFP: Oleg Kiper said there had been a “massive attack”, without providing details.

He asked residents to stay in shelters.

Ukraine’s air force said it had detected the launch of Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, without giving details.

A video posted on social media purporting to show the aftermath of a strike showed a multi-storey apartment building with several windows blown out and shards of glass on the street.

Air alerts were issued for more than a dozen regions across Ukraine.

On Tuesday a Russian strike damaged facilities at the port city of Odesa after Moscow pulled out of an agreement facilitating the safe shipment of grain from Ukraine.

The Kremlin later issued a veiled warning over the future of grain exports via the Black Sea, claiming Kyiv was using the export corridor “for combat purposes”.

Here is a selection of some of the most recent pictures sent to us from Ukraine and Crimea.

A local resident walks with a dog next to an apartment building damaged during the Russian missile and drone strikeson Odesa.

Children's bicycles are seen among debris in a damaged apartment building in Odesa.

In this still image from a video released on by the Russian National Antiterrorism Committee, a passenger train is seen passing by the damaged parts of an automobile link of the Crimean Bridge.

In this image released by Ukraine’s state emergency services a firefighter is seen working at the site of a recreation hotel hit by a Russian missile strike in the village of Kobleve, Mykolaiv.

Shaun Walker is in Odesa for the Guardian:

It was a second noisy night for residents of Odesa, with numerous explosions audible from the centre of the city and officials telling residents to take cover in bomb shelters. Since Russia pulled out of the grain deal on Monday it has been targeting Ukraine’s main port city relentlessly.

A wave of missiles and drones were used in the overnight attacks, most of which were intercepted by Ukrainian air defences. Various residents shared videos on Telegram of damage to windows or shrapnel damage from falling debris, but was it not immediately clear if there were casualties in the city.

Local residents remove debris at a site of an apartment building damaged during Russian missile and drone strikes near Odesa.

Ukraine’s Air Force said six high-precision Onix missiles were directed at Odesa’s port, where yesterday USAid chief Samatha Power held a press conference.

On Wednesday morning, authorities reported they were battling a fire in the broader Odesa region after Russian incoming hit warehouses containing fireworks and tobacco. One person was injured there.

Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, has posted this latest news update from Odesa. It writes:

During the night attack on Odesa region, rockets hit the grain and oil terminal, damaged tanks and equipment for loading, and a fire broke out, said Vladyslav Nazarov, the spokesperson for the “South” command.

In the Odesa region, an industrial facility was hit, where an employee was injured, and two warehouses in different locations were also hit – with tobacco and fireworks.

Also, as a result of combat work, several apartment buildings were damaged by an explosive wave in residential complexes of Odesa. At least six residents of Odesa, including a nine-year-old boy, sought medical help after being injured by fragments of glass and other objects.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Jamie Wilson, who is in Odesa for the Guardian, reports that, after a night of intense Russian attacks, “it is business as usual in central Odesa this morning, with lots of cars and buses and people going off to work.”

The scene on the streets in central Odesa on Wednesday morning.

Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday it downed 37 out of 63 targets in an Russian overnight missile and drone attack, including 23 suicide drones and 14 cruise missiles.

The air force said critical infrastructure and military facilities had been attacked in the nighttime strikes, and that the main target was Ukraine’s southern Odesa region.

Reuters reports that Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration in Ukraine, has posted two videos which purport to show fire in an uninhabited area of Crimea, saying, “Enemy ammunition depot. Staryi Krym.”

Staryi Krym is a small historical town in the Kirovske district of Crimea, the peninsula that Russia unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The fire comes two days after a blast damaged a bridge linking Russia to Crimea that Moscow blamed on Ukraine.

Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv, reports on Telegram that overnight, after a Russian attack, “recreational infrastructure facilities in a coastal zone were destroyed and set on fire. Detailed information is being clarified. Two people were injured, one of them was hospitalised.”

Most of Ukraine was under air raid alerts on and off starting soon after midnight on Wednesday, with Russia striking other places, including a drone attack on Kyiv.

“A difficult night of air attacks for all of Ukraine, especially in the south, in Odesa,” Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv’s city military administration, said on the Telegram channel.

He said Kyiv was attacked and according to preliminary information there was some damage or casualties.

The Moscow-backed governor of Crimea has just said on Telegram that 2,000 people will be evacuated as a result of the fire.

Governor Sergei Aksyonov wrote:

The temporary evacuation of residents of four settlements - that’s more than two thousand people - is planned from the area adjacent to the landfill in the Kirovsky District. The operational headquarters has been deployed, all specialized services are working on the spot.

A fire broke out at the military training grounds in the Kirovske district on the Crimean Peninsula, the Moscow-backed governor of Crimea said on Wednesday.

The fire forced the closure of the nearby Tavrida Highway, Russian-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov of Crimea said on the Telegram messaging app.

Earlier, the RBC-Ukraine news agency reported that there were explosions on the military training grounds.

AFP: Oleg Kiper said there had been a “massive attack”, without providing details.

He asked residents to stay in shelters.

Ukraine’s air force said it had detected the launch of Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, without giving details.

A video posted on social media purporting to show the aftermath of a strike showed a multi-storey apartment building with several windows blown out and shards of glass on the street.

Air alerts were issued for more than a dozen regions across Ukraine.

On Tuesday a Russian strike damaged facilities at the port city of Odesa after Moscow pulled out of an agreement facilitating the safe shipment of grain from Ukraine.

The Kremlin later issued a veiled warning over the future of grain exports via the Black Sea, claiming Kyiv was using the export corridor “for combat purposes”.

Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.

Our top stories this morning: Russia launched strikes on Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, the local governor said early Wednesday, the second consecutive night of attacks on the area since Moscow pulled out of a grain export deal.

Oleg Kiper urged residents to stay in shelters, before declaring the air alarm suspended, without providing details on damage.

And a fire broke out at the military training grounds in the Kirovske district on the Crimean Peninsula early on Wednesday morning, the Moscow-backed governor of Crimea said.

The fire forced the closure of the nearby Tavrida Highway, Russian-installed Governor Sergei Aksyonov of Crimea said on the Telegram messaging app. Earlier, the RBC-Ukraine news agency reported that there were explosions on the military training grounds. Neither the Guardian nor Reuters have independently verified the report.

Elsewhere:

Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had carried out overnight strikes on two Ukrainian port cities in what it called “a mass revenge strike” a day after an attack on the Kursk Bridge, which it blamed on Kyiv. The ministry claiming thats it hit “facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using crewless boats, as well as at the place of their manufacture at a shipyard near the city of Odesa”, and fuel depots in Mykolayiv.
Russia and Ukraine presented vastly different accounts of fighting in northeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, with Moscow reporting advances by its troops and Kyiv saying it had seized the initiative in the region. Both sides reported no letup in the fighting. Ukraine has reported a measure of progress in a counteroffensive launched early last month in the east and in capturing villages in the south, while Moscow says it has contained any move forward by Kyiv’s forces.
Both sides have achieved “marginal advances” in different areas over the past week, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence update on the conflict.
There are a “number of ideas being floated” to help get Ukrainian and Russian grain and fertiliser to global markets after Moscow quit a deal allowing the safe export of Ukraine grain through the Black Sea, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
The head of USAid accused Putin of making a “life and death decision” affecting millions of the world’s poorest people by withdrawing from the Black Sea grain deal. Speaking in the shadow of several vast grain silos in the key trading port of Odesa, Samantha Power pledged a further $250m to create and expand alternative routes for Ukrainian grain to leave the country, but admitted nothing would compensate for the loss of the Black Sea ports.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, discussed with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, ways of exporting Russian grain via routes “that would not be susceptible to Kyiv and the west’s sabotage”, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked permission from the international criminal court not to arrest Russia’s Vladimir Putin, because to do so would amount to a declaration of war, a local court submission published on Tuesday showed. South Africa is due to host a summit of the BRICS club of nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – next month. But the ICC has an arrest warrant out for Putin, accusing him of the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children to Russia. South Africa, as an ICC member, is obliged to arrest him should he appear in person at the summit.
An investigation has identified military units under Russia’s command that carried out human rights abuses last year during the occupation of the Ukrainian city of Izium. The report by the Centre for Information Resilience names four militia units that allegedly abused civilians and prisoners of war.
US General Mark Milley said in a Pentagon briefing that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is far from a failure but the fight ahead will be long. He said: “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going be hard. It’s going to be bloody.”
Ben Wallace, the outgoing UK defence secretary, said the war in Ukraine is “winnable”, arguing the Nato alliance “does function” as a deterrent against Russia at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change conference in London.
Russia’s parliament has extended the eligibility for military call-up by at least five years – in the case of the highest-ranking officers, up to the age of 70.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday it plans to invest £2.5bn ($3.3bn) in army stockpiles and munitions “to improve fighting readiness”, as it “takes learnings from the war in Ukraine”.
Russian air defences and electronic countermeasure systems downed 28 Ukrainian drones over Crimea in the early hours of Tuesday, the RIA news agency has cited the Russian defence ministry as saying. The drone attacks caused no casualties or damages, the ministry said.
Russian state-owned media is reporting that Russian Federation security services claim to have detained a woman on suspicion of preparing “a terrorist attack” in the Yaroslavl region, to the north of Moscow.

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2023-07-19 04:42:00Z
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North Korea silent about apparent detention of the US soldier - Euronews

North Korea was silent about the highly unusual entry of an American soldier across the Koreas' heavily fortified border although it test-fired short-range missiles Wednesday in its latest weapons display.

Nearly a day after the soldier bolted into North Korea during a tour in the border village of Panmunjom, there was no word on the fate of Private 2nd Class Travis King, the first known American detained in the North in nearly five years. The North's missile launches Wednesday morning were seen as a protest of the deployment of a US nuclear-armed submarine in South Korea the previous day and weren’t likely related to King’s border crossing.

“It’s likely that North Korea will use the soldier for propaganda purposes in the short term and then as a bargaining chip in the mid-to-long term,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in South Korea.

King, 23, was a cavalry scout with the 1st Armored Division who had served nearly two months in a South Korean prison for assault. He was released on 10 July and was being sent home Monday to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced additional military discipline and discharge from the service.

He was escorted as far as customs but left the airport before boarding his plane. It wasn’t clear how he spent the hours until joining the Panmunjom tour and running across the border Tuesday afternoon. The Army released his name and limited information after King’s family was notified. But a number of US officials provided additional details on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

King’s mother told ABC News she was shocked when she heard her son had crossed into North Korea.

“I can’t see Travis doing anything like that,” Claudine Gates, of Racine, Wisconsin, said.

Gates said the Army told her on Tuesday morning of his son's entrance to North Korea. She said she last heard from her son “a few days ago,” when he told her he would return soon to Fort Bliss. She added she just wants “him to come home.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the US government was working with North Korean counterparts to “resolve this incident.” The American-led UN Command said Tuesday the U.S. soldier was believed to be in North Korean custody.

“We’re closely monitoring and investigating the situation,” US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Pentagon news conference, noting he was foremost concerned about the troop’s well-being. “This will develop in the next several days and hours, and we’ll keep you posted.”

It wasn’t known whether and how the US and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, would hold talks. In the past, Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang, provided consular services for other Americans detained in North Korea. But its embassy’s Swedish diplomatic staff reportedly haven't returned to North Korea since the country imposed a COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020 and ordered out all foreigners.

Some observers say North Korea and the US could still communicate via Panmunjom or the North Korean mission at the UN in New York.

Cases of Americans or South Koreans defecting to North Korea are rare, though more than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea to avoid political oppression and economic difficulties since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tae Yongho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, said North Korea is likely pleased to have “an opportunity to get the US to lose its face” because King's crossing happened on the same day a US submarine arrived in South Korea. Tae, now a South Korean lawmaker, said North Korea won't likely return King because he is a soldier from a nation technically at war with North Korea who voluntarily surrendered to the North.

Panmunjom, located inside the 248-kilometres-long Demilitarized Zone, has been jointly overseen by the UN Command and North Korea since its creation at the close of the Korean War. The bloodshed has occasionally occurred there but has also been a venue for diplomacy and tourism.

Known for its blue huts straddling concrete slabs that form the demarcation line, Panmunjom draws visitors from both sides who want to see the Cold War’s last frontier. No civilians live at Panmunjom. North and South Korean soldiers face off while tourists on both sides snap photographs.

Tours to the southern side of the village reportedly drew around 100,000 visitors a year before the coronavirus pandemic, when South Korea restricted gatherings to slow the spread of COVID-19. The tours resumed fully last year.

A small number of US soldiers went to North Korea during the Cold War, including Charles Jenkins, who deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965 and fled across the DMZ. He appeared in North Korean propaganda films and married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted from Japan by North Korean agents. He died in Japan in 2017.

In recent years, some American civilians have been arrested in North Korea for alleged espionage, subversion and other anti-state acts, but were released after the US sent high-profile missions to secure their freedom.

In May 2018, North Korea released three American detainees who returned to the United States on a plane with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a short period of warm relations. Later in 2018, North Korea said it expelled American Bruce Byron Lowrance. Since his ouster, there have been no reports of other Americans detained in North Korea before Tuesday’s incident.

Their freedoms were a striking contrast to the fate of Otto Warmbier, an American university student who died in 2017 days after he was released by North Korea in a coma after 17 months in captivity.

The United States, South Korea and others have accused North Korea of using foreign detainees to wrest diplomatic concessions. Some foreigners have said after their release that their declarations of guilt were coerced while in North Korean custody.

Sean Timmons, a managing partner at the Tully Rinckey law firm, which specializes in military legal cases, said if King is trying to present himself as a legitimate defector fleeing either political oppression or persecution, he would be dependent on North Korea’s leadership to decide if he can stay.

He said it will likely be up to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to decide King’s fate.

“It’s going to be up to the whims of their leadership, what they want to do,” Timmons said.

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2023-07-19 05:07:30Z
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Families unable to cancel summer holidays despite extreme heat warnings and wildfires - The Independent

Families face having to cancel their summer holidays to Spain and Greece with no compensation, despite the exceptional heatwave subjecting swathes of Europe to extreme temperatures and wildfires.

While the Foreign Office has issued warnings over scorching temperatures in both Spain and Greece, as wildfires rage on La Palma and near Athens, the UK government has so far stopped short of issuing “don’t travel” advice.

As a result, there is no automatic right for families to curtail, cancel or change planned trips, and holiday companies and airlines contacted by The Independent say normal terms and conditions will apply.

A firefighting helicopter flies through smoke as people look on in Mandra, west of Athens

(AP/Petros Giannakouris)

While provisional heat records were shattered in Rome and Catalonia on Tuesday, forecasters are bracing for Charon – the second heatwave in as many weeks, named after the Greek ferryman of the dead – to potentially surpass Europe’s hottest-ever temperature of 48.8C, set in Sicily two years ago.

The mercury hit 45C near Girona on Tuesday, as tourists and locals across the Mediterranean sweltered in 40C temperatures which had failed to fall below 25C in many places overnight, compounding the risks of fatalities – with 61,000 people estimated to have died last summer in Europe alone.

However, holiday companies argue that soaring temperatures in holiday hotspots are nothing new at this time of year, with some British holidaymakers happy to travel to Dubai and Egypt’s Red Sea coast in July, where temperatures above 40C are the norm.

Under the Package Travel Regulations, holidaymakers can cancel for a refund “if unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances occur at the place of destination or its immediate vicinity which significantly affect the performance of the package or the carriage of passengers to the destination”.

But unless authorities issue instructions that make normal holiday activities impossible, it is difficult to see how the rule might apply during the heatwave.

A woman cools off at Fontana della Barcaccia at the Spanish Steps in Rome

(Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)

However, holidaymakers with a travel insurance policy in which a pre-existing health condition has been declared may have grounds to claim for a cancellation if they receive specific medical advice against travel to a very hot location.

The areas in which the European Union’s emergency response coordination centre has issued red alerts for high temperatures now include most of Italy, northeastern Spain, Croatia, Serbia, southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro.

Approached for comment about the dilemma facing some holidaygoers this week as the majority of schools in England and Wales break for the summer, the Foreign Office pointed The Independent to its official advice for Spain and Greece.

Noting the current “extreme temperatures”, those visiting both countries are advised to “check with your travel provider” before travelling and “follow the advice of local authorities at all times”, while those visiting Greece are told they can sign up to Athens’ official emergency alert system.

A Greek policeman evacuates a child from wildfire at the village of Agios Charamlabos, near the capital Athens

(AFP via Getty)

A Greek mayor in a town affected by the wildfires said residents were “living a nightmare” on Tuesday, as prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis rushed home early from a Brussels summit while hundreds of firefighters battled blazes stretching across five miles, fanned for a second day by erratic winds.

With hundreds of children forced to flee a summer camp on Monday, dozens of properties near Athens had been ravaged by the flames by the following day – after rescuers freed children and retirees from their homes, monks from a monastery, and horses from a stable.

Standing in the burnt-out house in Ano Lagonissi which had been his home for 32 years, Giorgos Nikolau, 89, told Reuters of how he fled the fire with just the swimming trunks and shirt he was wearing, adding: “I have nothing else, I don't even have other shoes. Nothing. I am finished.”

Authorities in Switzerland expressed fears on Tuesday that it could take weeks to fully extinguish a fire which engulfed a mountainside, forcing hundreds to flee – as firefighters in the Canary Islands battled the large blaze on La Palma for a fourth day.

A helicopter refills its bucket over the Gibidum dam to extinguish the forest fire above the Switzerland communes of Bitsch and Ried-Moerel

(EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott)

The extreme conditions were mirrored around the world, as millions of people in the United States, Asia and Africa also contend with record-breaking heat, in some cases in excess of 50C – conditions scientists warn are becoming more frequent due to the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.

With 2021 and 2022 having marked Europe’s hottest summers on record, according to the EU’s climate change body, tourism organisations have predicted that the heat could prompt a lasting shift in tourist habits, with more people choosing cooler destinations, or steering clear of summer travel.

The heat has also prompted some tourists to return home early. Anita Elshoy, who left a village north of Rome for Norway a week earlier than planned with her husband, told Reuters: “I got a lot of pain in the head, legs and [my] fingers swelled up and I became more and more dizzy.”

Warning that Europe was now experiencing “hotter and hotter temperatures for longer stretches of time every single summer”, the International Red Cross’s emergency health chief Panu Saaristo told reporters in Geneva: “Heatwaves are really an invisible killer.”

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2023-07-19 07:16:28Z
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Selasa, 18 Juli 2023

Families unable to cancel summer holidays despite extreme heat warnings and wildfires - The Independent

Families face having to cancel their summer holidays to Spain and Greece with no compensation, despite the exceptional heatwave subjecting swathes of Europe to extreme temperatures and wildfires.

A firefighting helicopter flies through smoke as people look on in Mandra, west of Athens

(AP/Petros Giannakouris)

But unless authorities issue instructions that make normal holiday activities impossible, it is difficult to see how the rule might apply during the heatwave.

A woman cools off at Fontana della Barcaccia at the Spanish Steps in Rome

(Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)

A Greek policeman evacuates a child from wildfire at the village of Agios Charamlabos, near the capital Athens

(AFP via Getty)

A helicopter refills its bucket over the Gibidum dam to extinguish the forest fire above the Switzerland communes of Bitsch and Ried-Moerel

(EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott)

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2023-07-18 18:31:51Z
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American soldier being held in North Korea was 'facing disciplinary action by US military' - Sky News

An American soldier who is believed to be in custody in North Korea was facing disciplinary action by the US military when he crossed into the secretive country, US officials said.

The crossing has created a fresh crisis for Washington in its dealings with the nuclear-armed state.

The US military has identified the soldier as Private Second Class Travis T. King, who joined an orientation tour of the Joint Security Area, which is part of the 160-mile demilitarised zone separating South and North Korea.

They said the soldier "wilfully and without authorisation crossed the Military Demarcation Line into the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)".

The man was with a group of visitors, including civilians, to the Panmunjom truce village when he suddenly bolted over the brick line marking the border, South Korean media reported, citing South Korean army sources.

Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the soldier had been due to face disciplinary action by the US military.

However, the officials also told Reuters it was not clear why the soldier fled to North Korea.

He had finished serving time in detention in South Korea for breaking an unspecified rule and was returning to his home unit in the US, two officials said.

The soldier was not in US military custody at the time he decided to flee, one official said, and it appeared he made a surprise decision to join the civilian tour to the demilitarised zone.

It was unclear for how long North Korean authorities would hold the soldier but analysts said the incident could be valuable propaganda for the isolated country.

The US bans its citizens from entering North Korea - the notorious totalitarian state run by Kim Jong Un where millions live in hunger and poverty.

"Historically, the North holds these folks for weeks, if not months, for propaganda purposes, especially if this is a US soldier, before a coerced confession and apology," said Victor Cha, a former US official and Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"It also sometimes requires an American official or ex-official to travel there to obtain the release," he added.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a news briefing in an update: "There's a lot that we're still trying to learn.

"We believe that he is in (North Korean) custody and so we're closely monitoring and investigating the situation and working to notify the soldier's next of kin."

Mr Austin has also said his "foremost concern" is the soldier's welfare.

Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said US officials at the Pentagon, the State Department and the United Nations were all working to "to ascertain more information and resolve this situation."

"We're in the early stages," she said, adding that the primary concern was determining the wellbeing of the soldier.

South and North Korean forces face each other at the Joint Security Area and it's often used for diplomatic meetings between the two countries.

It is also a popular tourist spot.

The soldier's crossing comes at a time of high tensions on the Korean peninsula, with the arrival of a US nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine in South Korea for a rare visit.

The move is seen as a warning to North Korea over its own military activities. It has been testing increasingly powerful missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, including a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile launched last week.

It fired another ballistic missile into the sea near Japan on Tuesday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing South Korea's military.

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2023-07-18 21:45:00Z
2258088325

Senin, 17 Juli 2023

Why is the Kerch Bridge attack significant to the war in Ukraine? - The Guardian

The Kerch Bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to Russia has been closed after explosions in the early hours of Monday killed two people and injured a child.

Where is the Kerch Bridge?

The Kerch Bridge, also known as the Crimean Bridge, was built by Russia after it invaded and de-facto annexed the peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. The 12-mile bridge, which includes a separate roadway and railway, spans the Kerch Strait and connects Crimea with mainland Russia. The construction was announced in 2014 and completed in 2018. The bridge holds great symbolic importance for the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin celebrated the opening of the bridge by driving a Kamaz truck from Kerch to Crimea and telling workers they had performed “a miracle”.

What happened?

There were reports of several explosions targeting the bridge at around 3am on Monday. Video taken from the adjacent railway bridge showed the blasts had shorn off a section of the road bridge near pillar 145, making it impossible for traffic to cross that section. Russia claimed there was no damage to the pillars themselves, which would have required extensive repairs. A married couple were killed and their 14-year-old daughter was injured in the blast. Russian officials said her life was not in danger.

This is the second time the bridge has been hit by an explosion since Russia’s full-scale invasion. In October, a truck bomb detonated on the bridge, causing several spans of roadway to collapse into the water.

Russia blamed Ukraine for that explosion, but Kyiv has not taken responsibility for it. Russia moved quickly to complete the repairs, with Putin driving a Mercedes over the bridge in early December and the formal reopening to road traffic taking place in late February.

How was Monday’s attack carried out?

Early reports suggest the attack was done through several unmanned, explosive-carrying amphibious vehicles, or sea drones, that were directed to the bridge and then detonated from beneath the roadway. Russia has blamed the attack on Ukraine, with the national anti-terrorist committee, a security services agency, saying: “Two Ukrainian unmanned underwater vehicles carried out an attack on the Crimean Bridge.”

Ukraine has not publicly taken responsibility for the attack and has a policy of disavowing attacks in Crimea and raids into mainland Russia. Aerial and seaborne unmanned vehicles have been used in previous attacks on Russian bases and the Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Some officials have hinted that the attack was carried out by Ukrainian special forces. In a post on Telegram, the SBU Security Service of Ukraine wrote: “The bridge has gone to sleep again.” A military intelligence spokesperson called the bridge a “superfluous structure”.

How is Russia defending the bridge?

Since the October attack, Russia has employed extraordinary security measures to defend the structure. Tourists travelling to Crimea during the holiday season reported queueing for hours as security forces checked every vehicle crossing the bridge for explosives. Russia beefed up anti-air defences to prevent an aerial or missile attack on the bridge. It also reportedly deployed a “target barge” with radar reflectors meant to act as a decoy for any guided missiles targeting the bridge. And in the wider region, the Russian navy has reportedly built new pens for dolphins trained at military facilities to protect its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol (the dolphins have been trained to target enemy divers).

Before the war, Russia claimed the bridge was “comprehensively protected on the ground, from the air and from the water and under the water”. In remarks to the Tass news agency, the Russian National Guard chief, Viktor Zolotov, said anti-saboteur boats patrolled the waters adjacent to the bridge and combat swimmers were deployed to check the waters beneath it.

Some Ukrainian officials used those heightened defences to deflect questions about whether Kyiv was behind the attack.

According to a translation by NBC, Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, told Ukrainian media: “Given the unprecedented security measures that the Russians have been taking for a long time around the Crimean Bridge, they most likely controlled this entire situation and it continues to unfold according to the script programmed by them.”

What is the result of the attack?

The attack is a blow to the Kremlin’s prestige and is the latest blowback from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on to territories that Moscow claims to control. Russian tourists wanting to leave the peninsula are being rerouted through newly occupied Russian territories in south-east Ukraine. The bridge is the only direct transport route that goes between mainland Russia and Crimea, although Russia can also supply the peninsula via its occupied territories or ferries from Kerch. The extent of the damage to the roadway bridge is still unclear, and the railway bridge, which carries freight that could include military vehicles and equipment, appears not to be affected.

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2023-07-18 01:31:00Z
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Europe heatwave: Temperatures set to hit 46C in Italy as Europe cooks in near-record heat - Sky News

The heatwave enveloping southern Europe is set to intensify even further today - with temperatures expected to reach as high as 46C.

Spain, Italy and Greece will bake today and the European Space Agency has warned that France, Germany and Poland will also face extreme heat over the coming days.

Sardinia and Sicily - among 16 areas under red alert - are forecast to hit 45C, while Taranto in southern Italy is expected to roast in 46C heat, 2.8C off the European record set in August 2021 in Floridia, Sicily.

Parts of Europe could "get levels similar to record levels" senior climate scientist Carlo Buontempo told Sky News.

The Spanish tourist hotspots of Madrid and Seville will also see temperatures exceeding 40C, as British holidaymakers are reconsidering their summer plans.

Athens will also contend with plus 40C conditions, days after the iconic Acropolis landmark temporarily closed to protect tourists from the incessant sun.

Wildfires have ripped across areas near the Greek capital, as firefighters tackled a blaze near Kouvaras, a village some 16 miles southeast of Athens.

Meanwhile a wildfire that started Saturday on the Canary Island of La Palma continues to burn out of control, with thousands of people evacuated.

"The climate crisis is not a warning. It's happening. I urge world leaders to ACT now," tweeted the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Ghebreyesus.

His words echo a warning from the World Meteorological Organisation that the world could possibly warm up by more than 1.5C before 2027.

Earth an 'inferno'

Earth will become an "inferno" if these heatwaves don't spur on governments to tackle global warming, according to climate scientist Dr Akshay Deoras of the University of Reading.

Humanity should expect "more frequent and intense" extreme weather events if global temperatures continue to rise at their current rate, Dr Deoras said.

"We knew early on that exceeding a 1.5C warming would have catastrophic consequences for extreme weather events, including the scorching heatwaves we are now seeing in Spain and Italy."

The Paris Agreement, signed by 175 countries, sought to stop 30-year global temperature averages rising 1.5C above those recorded in the second half of the 19th Century - before industrialisation saw fossil fuel emissions soar.

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2023-07-18 00:34:09Z
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How was Monday’s attack carried out?

How is Russia defending the bridge?

What is the result of the attack?

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