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Ukraine attacks key Russian held bridge in Kherson
Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont in Kyiv has filed this report on a night when it appears that Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian-occupied Kherson:
A key Russian held bridge into the occupied southern city of Kherson was hit with a barrage of rocket fire by Ukrainian forces who appeared to be stepping up operations to isolate the city.
Video and witness accounts showed up to 18 detonations on the Antonivskiy bridge over the Dnipro river, one of the main Russian resupply routes into Kherson, with Russian anti-missile air defences apparently failing to intercept the strikes.
Ukraine’s armed forces published a one-minute clip on Telegram purportedly showing the rocket fire just after 1am on Wednesday. “The moment of the flight over the Antonivskiy bridge,” the force said.
In another series of videos posted to Telegram where loud explosions could be heard, the military added: “Explosions in the Antonivskiy bridge area.”
The bridge has come under repeated attack in the past week as Ukraine has tried to cut off the handful of routes Russia can use to move heavy weapons in and around Kherson, including a road over the dam at nearby Nova Khakovka.
Read more here: Ukraine steps up attacks on Russian-occupied Kherson
Key events
Germany accuses Russia of ‘power play’ as gas pipeline supply drops by half
Philip Oltermann
Germany has accused Moscow of engaging in “power play” over energy exports, as Russian state-run Gazprom further throttled gas supplies into Europe.
As announced two days earlier, the energy giant on Wednesday reduced the gas flow through Nord Stream 1 to 33m cubic metres a day – about 20% of the pipeline’s total capacity and half the amount it has been delivering since resuming service last week after 10 days of maintenance work.
According to network data from the gas transfer station in Lubmin, north-east Germany, only about 17m kilowatt hours of gas arrived between 8am and 9am, compared with more than 27m kWh between 6am and 7am.
A tongue-in-cheek petition to give the outgoing British prime minister, Boris Johnson, Ukrainian citizenship and make him the country’s prime minister has garnered over 2,500 signatures hours after being put up on Ukraine’s official petitions site on Tuesday.
Despite losing domestic popularity and eventually having been forced to announce his resignation after dozens of ministerial departures in early July, Johnson remains a cult figure in Kyiv for his vocal support of Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.
The Reuters news agency reported:
The petition, addressed to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, lists Johnson’s strengths as “worldwide support for Boris Johnson, a clear position against the military invasion of Ukraine, (and) wisdom in the political, financial and legal spheres.”
The petition, however, does acknowledge one negative side of such an appointment: its non-compliance with Ukraine’s constitution.
In an apparent coincidence, several hours after the petition was put up on Tuesday, Johnson presented Zelenskiy with the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership award for what his Downing Street office described as “incredible courage, defiance, and dignity” in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskiy did not mention the new petition when accepting the award, but he will be obliged to officially respond if it receives 25,000 signatures.
The Czech government has backed allowing its fighter jets to protect neighbouring Slovakia’s air space from September, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.
Slovakia has sought help from its Nato allies as it looks to ground its Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jets in August under long-standing plans to modernise the military.
Slovak government officials have said the old jets could be sent to neighbouring Ukraine to help Kyiv defend itself against Russia’s invasion, Reuters reported.
From September, the Czech army’s Gripen JAS-39 fighter jets will provide air policing for Slovakia until at least the end of 2023, the Czech Defence Ministry said. Poland is also expected to take part, it said.
More details will come as part of a joint declaration from the countries to be signed in the near future.
Russia cannot be trusted to honour an agreement to allow the export of Ukrainian grain from Odesa, the Polish prime minister said on Wednesday, after Moscow launched a missile strike on the Black Sea port.
“The day after the signing [of the agreement], the Russian armed forces … attacked Odesa,” Mateusz Morawiecki told a news conference.
“It follows that such agreements cannot be considered fully credible, because unfortunately that is what Russia is like.”
Peter Beaumont
In response to the attack on the Antonivskiy Bridge, Russian military bloggers, some of whom have become more critical of the Kremlin’s conduct of the war, underlined the problems facing Russian forces in the Kherson area.
Among them was the Voennyi Osvedomitel (military informant) Telegram channel, which has a following of 450,000 people.
“The repeated attacks by the armed forces of Ukraine have led to – so far – a temporary failure of the Antonivskiy Bridge, forcing the construction of ferry and pontoon crossings as an alternative.
“There are exactly two problems here. First, the consequences of shelling the bridge have a cumulative effect, that is, each subsequent one does more damage than the previous one … The second is that alternatives in the form of pontoons / ferries are much more vulnerable to enemy fire.
“We are forced to conclude that the problem with the ongoing attempts of the armed forces of Ukraine to cut off the right-bank grouping of [Russian forces] from supplies is not being resolved.”
The bridge has come under repeated attack in the past week as Ukraine has tried to cut off the handful of routes Russia can use to move heavy weapons in and around Kherson, including a road over the dam at nearby Nova Kakhovka.
Gazprom says turbine used for Nord Stream 1 has not arrived from Canada
Gazprom’s deputy CEO, Vitaly Markelov, has said the company has still not received a Siemens turbine used at Nord Stream 1’s Portovaya compressor station that has been undergoing servicing in Canada.
Reuters reports Markelov blamed Siemens, which is servicing the turbine, for the delay, saying that there were sanctions risks associated with the machinery.
Yesterday energy ministers from the 27 EU member states, except Hungary, backed a voluntary 15% reduction in gas usage over the winter, a target that could become mandatory if the Kremlin ordered a complete shutdown of gas to Europe.
Here are some pictures of the newly opened joint coordination centre (JCC) in Istanbul which will oversee the export of grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in a deal brokered by Turkey.
Reuters reports that a Turkish official close to the matter said that prior to last week’s agreement the Ukrainian and Russian sides initially did not talk to each other during the negotiations, but then they softened.
“The Ukrainian and Russian representatives are staying here at the joint centre. The parties have social conversations with each other in this campus. They are eating together here,” he said.
Analysis: Is Russia killing off the ISS?
The invasion of Ukraine appears to be having consequences beyond the confines of earth, as the Guardian’s science editor Ian Sample writes today:
This week’s announcement by Yury Borisov, the new head of Roscosmos, that Russia will quit the International Space Station after 2024, is only the latest expression of the country’s discontent.
Fractures in the partnership, which also includes Europe, Canada and Japan, have appeared before. In 2014, Russia’s then deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said his country would reject plans to extend ISS operations beyond 2020, in protest against sanctions over the annexation of Crimea. The threat was dropped, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year sparked further upheaval for space cooperation that looks far harder to repair.
Read more of Ian Sample’s analysis here: Is Russia killing off the International Space Station?
Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, has said that ten high-rise buildings have been damaged as a result of shelling today. There were no casualties or injuries he posted to Telegram, but “they have partially broken windows, broken balconies.”
Work to restart grain exports starts at Black Sea ports
Ukraine’s navy confirmed on Wednesday that work had started at three Ukrainian Black Sea ports aimed at preparing for the resumption of grain exports.
“In connection with the signing of the agreement on the unblocking of Ukrainian ports for the export of grain, work has been resumed in the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdeny,” the navy said on Facebook.
“The departure and arrival of ships to seaports will be carried out by forming a caravan that will accompany the lead ship.”
Preparations are continuing for the first ships to leave Ukrainian ports under a landmark UN deal to export Ukrainian grains, the Turkish defence minister, Hulusi Akar, has said.
Akar added that the goal of a monitoring centre in Istanbul was to ensure the safe shipment of grains from three Ukrainian ports, with more than 25m tonnes of grain waiting there.
Caroline Kimeu
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign affairs minister, was in Uganda on Tuesday for bilateral talks with President Yoweri Museveni, on his third stop of an African tour that ends in Ethiopia today.
The trip comes against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is having devastating consequences on food supply across Africa. The war has fuelled food shortages in east Africa, which was already hard-hit by climate change and disruptions to the food supply due to Covid-19.
Roughly 48 million people are facing food shortages in the region, and in Uganda, nearly 500,000 are food insecure.
“Since the blockade [of Ukrainian ports], food prices in Uganda have risen at an alarming rate,” says Catherine Ogolla, east Africa representative at the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development.
“Communities in the most arid areas of northern Uganda and Karamoja are beset by climate change and particularly vulnerable to unstable food markets,” she says.
Russia is doubling down its efforts to strengthen ties with Uganda and other countries across Africa, where a number of states have declined to take a stance on the war because of economic, political and security relations with Russia, Ukraine and western nations.
Uganda was one of 17 African countries that abstained from a United Nations general assembly resolution in March condemning Russia’s offensive into Ukraine.
Ukrainian parliament approved the appointment of lawmaker Andriy Kostin as the country’s prosecutor general on Wednesday, the prosecutor general’s office said.
Some 299 deputies in the 450-seat parliament endorsed Kostin’s appointment, it said on the Telegram messaging app.
Kostin is a member of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s Servant of the People party, Reuters reported.
The president had earlier nominated Kostin to replace Iryna Venediktova, who was removed as prosecutor general earlier this month.
The European Union had understood how “essential” to Russia the issue of goods transit to the country’s Kaliningrad exclave is, according to Moscow.
Reuters reported that the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said developments around the exclave were “positive”, after a deal with the EU to unblock transit to Kaliningrad.
Tensions between the EU and Russia had soared after suggestions that sanctions imposed on Russia over its deployment of troops to Ukraine could ban goods transfers between the Russian mainland and Kaliningrad, which are routed through EU member state Lithuania.
The Kremlin has said that an EU court’s decision to uphold a ban on Russian state-controlled broadcaster Russia Today was “extremely negative” and that Moscow would take similar measures against Western media in response.
In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia Today was unable to work in Europe but he hoped it would find loopholes to resume broadcasting.
The EU court earlier upheld a European Union ban imposed on the broadcaster in March due to its systematic disinformation over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
A volley of Ukrainian missiles rained down on the Antonivskiy Bridge in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson, an indicator that the Ukrainian army is stepping up its attempts to isolate the city.
The bridge is a key Russian resupply route, which Russian forces have held since early March.
Summary of the day so far …
- A key Russian-held bridge into the occupied southern city of Kherson has been hit with a barrage of rocket fire by Ukrainian forces, who appeared to be stepping up operations to isolate the city. Video and witness accounts showed up to 18 detonations on the Antonivskiy Bridge over the Dnieper river, one of the main Russian resupply routes into Kherson, with Russian anti-missile air defences apparently failing to intercept the strikes. There were also reports that a railway bridge was targeted.
- Self-appointed authorities in the occupied Kherson region have closed the bridge to traffic, but said it was structurally sound and that repairs would begin shortly. Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-imposed administration, said “There are hits on the bridge, the bridge has not been destroyed. More holes have been added”. He claimed that the attack would make life slightly more difficult for the resident of Kherson, but “it will not affect the outcome of hostilities in any way.”
- One person has been killed and four wounded in a Russian attack on a hotel in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, according to local emergency services and the regional governor.
- The self-proclaimed republic in Donetsk has said that two civilians were injured in territory it occupies by shelling from Ukrainian forces overnight.
- The UK’s Ministry of Defence has said “Russian private military company Wagner has likely succeeded in making tactical advances in the Donbas around the Vuhlehirska power plant and the nearby village of Novoluhanske. Some Ukrainian forces have likely withdrawn from the area.”
- Russian forces continued to strike civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and the surrounding region in the country’s northeast. Regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said the strikes on the city resumed around dawn Tuesday. “The Russians deliberately target civilian infrastructure objects hospitals, schools, movie theatres. Everything is being fired at, even queues for humanitarian aid,” Syniehubov told Ukrainian television.
- Russia has lost almost 40,000 soldiers since launching its latest invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has claimed in his nightly address. The number of casualties has not been verified.
- Zelenskiy has nominated Andriy Kostin, a lawmaker from the president’s political party, to be the country’s next prosecutor general. He would replace Iryna Venediktova, who was removed as prosecutor general earlier this month. The appointment has to be approved by parliament.
- The headquarters overseeing exports of Ukrainian grain is set to be unveiled in Istanbul today, and a senior Turkish official said the first ship is likely to depart Black Sea ports in a few days. The joint coordination centre (JCC) in Istanbul will oversee departures from three Ukrainian ports in which ships must circumvent mines, and will conduct inspections of incoming ships for weapons. All vessels pass through Turkish waters.
- The Russian deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, has said a Turkish-brokered deal to unblock Ukrainian grain exports on the Black Sea could collapse if obstacles to Russia’s agricultural exports are not promptly removed.
- The first train with sanctioned goods has arrived from Russia to Kaliningrad via Lithuania in the first such trip since the European Union said Lithuania must allow Russian goods across its territory, according to the regional governor. The train reportedly consisted of 60 freight cars with cement.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I am handing over to Tom Ambrose, and will be back later on.
We reported earlier that Pavlo Kyrylenko claimed that a hotel had been struck in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Reuters is now reporting that local emergency services have put the casualty figures from the attack at four wounded and at least one person dead.
Here is a view of people looking out across the Antonivskiy bridge over the Dnipro river in occupied Kherson. It currently appears to be closed to civilians and to traffic.
Kirill Stremousov, one of the self-appointed officials in the Russian-imposed administration in the occupied region, has told Russian news agency Tass that repairs will begin soon.
Reuters is carrying a quote about the attack from Nataliya Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian forces. In a TV interview she said: “I will note that we appreciate everything that is in our country, even when it is under occupation. There were strikes, but they were intricate.”
The Ukrainian side is saying it took care to damage the bridge so that it was unusable for heavy goods and military machinery, but not to destroy it.
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