The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
10:17 p.m.: Ukraine’s recent rapid advance into Russian-occupied territory liberated the resort village of Shchurove, once a forest haven for families and fishermen taking a break from city life, Agence France-Presse reported.
But the Russian occupation and the recent fierce battle in the woods around the village have left the once neat little bungalows and country hotels devastated, and the streets silent.
The few civilians around estimate that 20 to 30 of the once 200 permanent residents remain, and the only guests are the cheerful Ukrainian soldiers resting among the ruins.
“God only knows how we survived. Only a few of us remain,” said Svitlana Borisenko, 65, a widow who has lived in Shchurove all her life, even through the four months of occupation.
“It was miserable when Russia arrived, it was a disaster. They destroyed everything around them. They kicked in our doors and it was really terrifying,” she said.
9:10 p.m.: At least 17 people including a child died when seven Russian missiles struck the industrial town of Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities said Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse.
The missiles struck before dawn on Thursday, with three landing in the town center, just 40 kilometers from the artillery battles of the southern front.
A five-story residential building on the main street was almost completely razed.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out on Telegram saying Zaporizhzhia “is subjected to massive rocket attacks every day… (it’s a) deliberate crime.”
8 p.m.: An investigation into the explosion on the Crimea Bridge has begun, Reuters reported.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin ordered that the collapsed section of the bridge be dismantled immediately, according to domestic news agencies.
Divers are to start examining the damage at 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Sunday and a more detailed survey above the waterline should be completed by the end of the day, they quoted him as saying.
It was not yet clear if the blast was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such high-profile infrastructure came as Russia has suffered several battlefield defeats and could further cloud Kremlin messages of reassurance that the conflict is going to plan.
7:14 p.m.: Ukrainian troops are involved in tough fighting near the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut, which Russia is trying to take, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in video address on Saturday.
Although Ukrainian troops have recaptured thousands of square kilometers of land in recent offensives in the east and south, officials say progress is likely to slow once Kyiv’s forces meet more determined resistance, Reuters reported.
Russian forces have repeatedly tried to seize Bakhmut, which sits on a main road leading to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Both are situated in the industrial Donbas region, which Moscow has yet to fully capture.
“We are holding our positions in the Donbas, in particular in the Bakhmut direction, where it is very, very difficult now, very tough fighting,” Zelenskyy.
6:17 p.m.: The Russian government has designated a chart-topping rapper as a “foreign agent,” a label that has been widely seen as part of authorities’ efforts to muzzle critical voices, The Associated Press reported.
Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, was added to the justice ministry’s “foreign agent” list on Friday alongside Dmitry Glukhovsky, a veteran science-fiction writer, and Alyona Popova, a prominent feminist and one-time face of Russia’s campaign for a domestic violence law.
Oxxxymiron, a dual Russian-British national, has called the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine “a catastrophe,” and publicly called for the creation of an anti-war movement. He cancelled a sold-out Russian tour shortly after Moscow’s troops rolled into Ukraine on Feb. 24, and organized benefit concerts in Western Europe and Turkey, with proceeds going to Ukrainian refugees.
5:19 p.m.: The bridge over the Kerch Strait reopened to limited road traffic about 10 hours after it was damaged by an explosion, and the Russian Transport Ministry cleared rail traffic to restart shortly afterward, Reuters reported.
Russian officials said three people had been killed, probably the occupants of a car traveling near a truck that blew up. Seven fuel tanker wagons on a train heading for the peninsula on the bridge’s upper level also caught fire.
Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the 19-kilometer bridge linking Crimea to Russia’s transport network was opened with great fanfare four years later by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
4:27 p.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered tighter security for the Kerch Strait bridge from Russia to Crimea as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to the peninsula, Interfax said.
In a decree issued hours after the bridge was damaged by a blast, Putin said the FSB security service would be responsible for strengthening protection measures.
He also ordered a commission to investigate.
3:31 p.m.: Russian officials on Saturday sought to assure Crimean residents after an explosion damaged a road-and-rail bridge over the Kerch Strait, Reuters reported.
In a video message, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian governor of Crimea, said he wanted to “assure Crimeans that the Republic of Crimea is fully provided with fuel and food. We have more than a month’s worth of fuel, and more than two months’ worth of food.”
The Russian governor of Sevastopol, which has separate territorial status in Crimea as home to the Black Sea Fleet, also sought to reassure locals.
“We are not cut off from the mainland!” Mikhail Razvozzhayev posted on Telegram. “Keep calm. Don’t panic.”
1:50 p.m.: European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell on Saturday condemned “in the strongest possible terms” Moscow’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
“Russia must fully withdraw its military forces and equipment and hand back control of the NPP [nuclear power plant] to its rightful owner, Ukraine,” read a statement posted on the EU External Action website. “A reinforced IAEA presence at the site and its unhindered access to the plant are urgently needed in the interest of the security of Europe as a whole.”
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin Friday signed a decree claiming the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as a Russian “state enterprise.”
1:15 p.m.: Russia’s Defense Ministry Saturday announced the appointment of General Sergei Surovikin as the new overall commander of Kremlin forces engaged in Ukraine. RFE/RL reports that the move marks the first official announcement of a single overall commander for all Russian forces fighting in Ukraine since its invasion began on February 24.
“By the decision of the defense minister of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Surovikin has been appointed commander of the joint group of troops in the area of the special military operation,” the statement said, using the Kremlin’s term for the invasion of Ukraine.
Since 2017, Surovikin has led Russia’s Aerospace Forces — an office created in 2015 when the Russian Air Force, the Air and Missile Forces, and the Space Forces were placed under one command.
In June, Surovikin was placed in charge of Russian troops in southern Ukraine. He had previously served in Tajikistan, Chechnya, and Syria.
The announcement came hours after a blast and fire stopped traffic and damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula earlier Saturday. It also followed a report by Ukraine’s Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate on Facebook that Russia’s National Guard and police units had begun arresting military personnel in the Moscow.
1:00 p.m.: Raphael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, on Saturday took to Twitter, calling Russia’s shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia “tremendously irresponsible,” and renewing calls for a protection zone to be set up around Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Overnight shelling in Zaporizhzhia cut the only source of electrical power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, now occupied by Russian forces.
Ukraine’s state nuclear company and the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Saturday that the plant, which needs cooling to avoid a meltdown, was forced to switch to emergency generators.
Even though the six reactors are shut down, they still need a constant supply of electricity to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent disaster.
12:15 p.m.: Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, suggested on Twitter that the explosion on the Crimean bridge earlier Saturday was the result of a conflict between Russia’s Security Service (FSB) and private military companies on one side, and Russia’s Defense Ministry and General Staff on the other.
12:00 p.m.: Ukraine’s Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate said on Facebook Saturday that Russia’s National Guard and police units begun arresting military personnel in Moscow, The Kyiv Independent reports. Downtown traffic is blocked, according to the report, which said numerous arrests and detentions have been made and that all military units in the city are on high alert.
11:30 a.m.: Dmytro Orlov, mayor of Enerhodar near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said his city and surrounding villages under Russian control were cut off from power after “another explosion,” The Kyiv Independent reports. Orlov did not offer further details.
11:00 a.m.: During a visit to Lithuania Saturday, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said that NATO must do more for common security to protect itself against any aggressive actions by Russia and President Vladimir Putin, RFE/RL reported.
“The fact is that we, NATO, must do more for our common security because we cannot know how far Putin’s delusions of grandeur can go,” Lambrecht said while visiting German troops deployed in the Baltic nation.
“We’ve heard Russia’s threats to Lithuania, which was implementing European sanctions on the border with Kaliningrad. [These are] not nearly the first threats, and we must take them seriously and be prepared,” she said.
“The security of Lithuania is the security of Germany. It is this promise of common security that we are recommitting ourselves to today,” she said at Lithuania’s Rukla military base.
Germany heads an international combat brigade of 3,000-5,000 soldiers stationed in Lithuania. The force is part of NATO efforts to bolster its eastern flank amid recent aggressive actions in the region by Moscow.
Lithuania shares borders with the Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad as well as with Kremlin ally Belarus.
10:45 a.m.: Sergey Askyonov, head of the Russian-annexed Republic of Crimea, said car traffic had resumed on the bridge linking Crimea with Russia, following an early-morning explosion, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Ferry movement for trucks would start within several hours, according to Aksyonov, and the railway traffic on the bridge was expected to resume by the end of the night.
9:40 a.m.: The U.N. nuclear watchdog says that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, has lost its last remaining external power source as a result of renewed shelling and is now relying on emergency diesel generators. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that the plant’s link to a 750-kilovolt line was cut at around 1:00 a.m. Saturday. It cited official information from Ukraine as well as reports from IAEA experts at the site, which is held by Russian forces. All six reactors at the plant are shut down but they still require electricity for cooling and other safety functions. The IAEA said plant engineers have begun work to repair the damaged power line.
9:00 a.m.: A Ukrainian government official told The Washington Post on Saturday that Ukrainian special services were behind the attack on the Kerch Strait bridge connecting Russia with Crimea. The Ukrainska Pravda news site first reported the government’s role, citing an unidentified law enforcement official who said Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, was involved.
7:45 a.m.: Russian officials blamed a truck explosion for the partial destruction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait connection Russia with the Crimean Peninsula, the BBC reported.
They say the blast led to oil tankers on the rail section catching fire, before the road collapsed. Russia’s proxy in Crimea Vladimir Konstantinov accused Ukraine of hitting the bridge.
Ukraine has not officially confirmed its involvement, but the Ukraine government’s official Twitter account posted “Sick burn.”
A Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, did not directly claim Ukraine’s responsibility but tweeted “Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.”
7:30 a.m.: An explosion caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with Russia on Saturday, damaging a key supply artery for the Kremlin’s war effort in southern Ukraine. Three people were killed in the blast, Russian authorities said.
The speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed regional parliament immediately accused Ukraine, though Moscow didn’t apportion blame. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly threatened to strike the bridge and some lauded the attack, but Kyiv stopped short of claiming responsibility.
5:43 a.m.: The latest Ukraine assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said Ukrainian forces likely continued counteroffensive operations along the Kreminna-Svatove road in western Luhansk Oblast.
Russian forces, the assessment said, continued to establish defensive positions in northern Kherson Oblast, and Ukrainian and Russian sources reported ongoing battles north and northwest of Kherson City.
4:37 a.m.: The latest intelligence update from the U.K. defense ministry said recent battlefield setbacks for Russia have spurred new criticism, including from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, Wagner Group private military company owner Yevgeny Prigozhin, state-approved TV presenters, pop stars, and an increasingly vocal community of ultra-nationalistic military bloggers. The update said it represents a trend of public voicing of dissent against the Russian establishment which is being at least partly tolerated and which will likely be hard to reverse.
4:06 a.m.: A series of explosions rocked Kharkiv early Saturday, sparking a fire that sent towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city.
He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city’s medical institutions and a non-residential building.
3:32 a.m.: Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee says that a truck bomb has caused a fire and the collapse of a section of a bridge linking Russia-annexed Crimea with Russia, The Associated Press reported. The committee said Saturday that the truck bomb triggered seven railway cars carrying fuel to catch fire. That resulted in a “partial collapse of two sections of the bridge.” The committee didn’t immediately apportion blame.
3:13 a.m.: Ukrainian authorities have found a mass grave in the recently liberated eastern town of Lyman and it is unclear how many bodies it holds, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post on Friday, according to Reuters.
Separately, the Ukrinform news agency cited a senior police official as saying the grave contained 180 bodies. Ukrainian troops retook Lyman, in the Donetsk region, from Russian control on Saturday.
Ukrainian authorities have regularly accused Russian troops of committing atrocities in occupied territories, a charge Moscow denies.
Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram that officials in Lyman had found “a mass grave where, according to local information, there could be both soldiers and civilians. The exact number is yet to be ascertained.”
He said a second burial site with 200 graves had also been found, containing the bodies of civilians. It was not clear from his comments how or when they had died.
2:10 a.m.: A U.N. human rights body comfortably passed a motion on Friday to appoint a new independent expert on alleged human rights abuses in Russia, accusing Moscow of creating a “climate of fear” through repression and violence, Reuters reported.
The Russian government quickly made clear it would not cooperate with the expert.
Members voted 17 in favor and six against, with 24 abstaining. The move is the first time that the 16-year-old Human Rights Council (HRC) has set up a Special Rapporteur to examine the rights record of one of its so-called ‘P5’ members, which hold permanent seats on the Security Council.
“We want it to be clear today that we didn’t forget those who struggle for freedom at home while (Russian President Vladimir) Putin represses the Russian people and carries out aggression overseas,” Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Simon Manley, told Reuters right after the vote.
Nearly 50 countries brought the motion including Britain, all European Union countries barring Hungary, as well as the United States, Ukraine, Japan and Colombia. China was among those opposed.
In Moscow, the foreign ministry said it firmly rejected the resolution on the grounds it contained false allegations, Tass news agency said.
1:17 a.m.: The International Monetary Fund announced Friday that it will provide $1.3 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine through its new food crisis assistance program. Agence France-Presse reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had unveiled the IMF’s aid earlier Friday. “The money will go to Ukraine today,” he said on Twitter, thanking the crisis lender’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva and its executive board.
The IMF also said Ukrainian authorities “deserve considerable credit for having maintained an important degree of macro-financial stability in these extremely challenging circumstances.”
For her part, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that key policies have been geared toward safeguarding priority expenditures and preserving financial stability.
12:02 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, published Friday, to set up a new operator for the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project, following similar steps to seize other oil and gas projects with foreign participation, Reuters reported.
Exxon Mobil, with a 30% stake, was the operator of Sakhalin-1, a development in Russia’s Far East. The largest U.S. producer has been trying to exit Russia operations since March, days after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Exxon declined to comment on Friday’s decree.
In April, Exxon took a $4.6 billion impairment charge for exiting its Russian activities, leaving Sakhalin-1 operation open for a takeover from a partner. It also proceeded to reduce oil and gas production volumes and remove personnel from the country.
Source: Voice of America
