Two explosions rocked Kyiv early Monday following months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital.
The explosions were heard by AP journalists and appeared to be the result of missile strikes.
Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitchko reported explosions in the city’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Recent fighting has focused on the regions just north of Crimea, including Zaporizhzhia, where six missiles were launched overnight Saturday from Russian-occupied areas of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called the attack that damaged the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea “a terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of orchestrating what he called a terrorist attack on a key bridge linking Russia and Crimea, as he prepared to hold a meeting of his security council amid calls for reprisals. CONFLICT
* Russian shelling destroyed an apartment building in the latest attack on civilian infrastructure in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said, a day after a similar strike killed at least 13 people and wounded more than 70. Russia denies targeting civilians.
* Russian divers were to examine the damage from a powerful blast on a road-and-rail bridge to Crimea that is an imposing symbol of Moscow's annexation of the peninsula and a key supply route to its forces battling in southern Ukraine.
* Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, said a vehicle exploded on the bridge.
* Images showed part of the bridge's road blown away, although rail services and partial road traffic resumed.
* The Russian transport ministry, quoted by RIA news agency, said nearly 1,500 people and 162 heavy cargoes had travelled by ferry across the Kerch Strait since the explosion.
* The external power supply to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plantwas restored on Sunday, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said.
ECONOMY, DIPLOMACY
* The White House said it would continue to arm Ukraine but declined direct comment on the explosion that damaged Russia's road-and-rail bridge to Crimea.
* Ukraine's economy shrank an estimated 30% in the first three quarters of 2022 from the same period in 2021, with bad harvest weather compounding the impact of the war, the economy ministry said.
* The Kremlin praised OPEC+ for agreeing production cuts that had successfully countered the "mayhem" sown by the United States in global energy markets.
QUOTES
* "Russia can only respond to this crime by directly killing terrorists, as is the custom elsewhere in the world. This is what Russian citizens expect," Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Medvedev said, according to Tass, in reference to the bridge attack.
Reuters/AP
