Russia-Ukraine war: Kyiv ‘blows up’ second bridge in Kursk as Putin hits back with missiles attack on capital

The safety at Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is “deteriorating” after drone strikes near the facility, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

IAEA said its team visited the site, under Russian occupation since March 2022, and found that the damage at Europe’s largest nuclear facility seemed to have been caused by a drone carrying explosives.

While there are no reported human casualties near the plant or damage to equipment, military activity near the ZNPP has been “intense” in recent days, according to the agency’s report.

“Nuclear power plants are designed to be resilient against technical or human failures and external events including extreme ones, but they are not built to withstand a direct military attack, and neither are they supposed to, just as with any other energy facility in the world,” IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

Suggestions that Ukrainian authorities supported by Poland were behind planning and executing the sabotage attack on Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 are groundless, the Polish president’s aide has said.

Germany’s former intelligence chief August Hanning told Die Welt this week he believed there were agreements between presidents of Poland and Ukraine to carry out the attack.

“These are completely groundless insinuations,” Mieszko Pawlak, head of the international policy bureau at the office of President Andrzej Duda said when asked about the allegations.

German media reported this week that German prosecutors had identified a Ukrainian diving instructor as a key suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage attack and issued a warrant to arrest him in Poland.

Poland received the warrant but the suspect has left the country as Germany failed to include his name in a database of wanted persons, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.

Ukraine has destroyed a key bridge in Russia’s Kursk region and struck a second one nearby, less than two weeks into its stunning cross-border incursion, disrupting Russian supply routes and possibly signaling that its troops are planning to dig in.

Russia’s pro-Kremlin military bloggers have acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge, which spanned the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo, will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion.

Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday released a video of a Ukrainian airstrike that split the bridge in two.

Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and the Russian regional governor, Alexei Smirnov.

As of Sunday morning, there were no official reports on where exactly the second bridge attack took place. Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim, in the village of Zvannoe, had been struck.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said that Minsk had deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the Belta state news agency reported.

He did not say exactly how many troops were deployed. Belarus’ professional army has about 48,000 troops and around 12,000 state border troops, according to the 2022 International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance.

“Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points – in case of war, they would be defence – our military along the entire border,” Belta cited Lukashenko as saying in an interview with Russian state television.

Kyiv did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment. On Saturday Kyiv said it had seen no signs of a Belarusian troop buildup at the border.

Russian forces took control of the village of Svyrydonivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the TASS state news agency reported on Sunday, citing the defence ministry.

It comes as Russian forces carried out its third ballistic missile attack on Kyiv this month on Sunday.

Ukraine’s invading forces in the Russian region of Kursk have destroyed a key bridge and supply route for Moscow, as reporters described a “trail of destruction” left in the wake of Kyiv’s incursion.

Some 12 days into the largest invasion of Russia since the Second World War, Kyiv’s troops are strengthening their positions in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.

Artillery fire has blown chunks out of a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that stands in the town of Sudzha, which is now occupied by Ukrainian forces. Buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes and the streets, which were strewn with debris, were mainly empty as residents retreated to basements.

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Following Russia’s fresh attack on Ukraine, Kyiv officials said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in the capital. However, Kyiv region governor Ruslan Kravchenko said two private houses were destroyed and 16 others were damaged by falling debris.

“Russia always knows where it is hitting with its missiles and bombs, and this is deliberate and targeted Russian terror,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram.

He said Russia had launched more than 40 missiles, 750 guided aerial bombs and 200 attack drones this week against Ukrainian villages and cities.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has said that Ukraine has stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border.

Minsk has now sent military formations along its entire border in response, Russia’s RIA state news agency said.

Lukashenko, an ally of Vladimir Putin, said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is mined “as never before” and that Ukrainian troops would incur huge losses if they tried to cross it.

The commander of Ukraine’s air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said it had destroyed eight Russian attack drones and five out of eight missiles launched overnight across the country, including Kyiv.

Oleshchuk said anti-aircraft combat, anti-aircraft missile troops, mobile firing groups and electronic warfare units had downed 13 air targets in the Kyiv, Sumy and Poltava regions.

He said Russia launched eight missiles on Sunday morning, including three ballistic, three cruise and two guided aircraft missiles. Ukraine shot down five of them, he said, and the three missiles it missed had failed to reach their targets.

North Korea has dramatically upgraded its ties with Russia in the past year with two summit meetings by their leaders who pledged closer cooperation in all areas.

In June, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a pact in Pyongyang on “comprehensive strategic partnership” that included a mutual defence agreement.

South Korea, Ukraine and the United States have accused North Korea of supplying artillery and missiles to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine. North Korea and Russia have denied the allegations.