Ukraine targets key bridge to Crimea as Russian rockets kill 3 – National

A Russian rocket attack targeted the Ukrainian city in northeast Sumy on Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring 25, officials announced. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the assault, saying that he stressed that Moscow has no intention of Stop the three -year war.

The attack came one day After direct peace discussions In Istanbul has made no progress to end the three -year war. Local authorities said the Roquettes dam had struck apartments and a medical establishment in the center of Sumy.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s secret services said they had hit Russia again, two days after a spectacular Ukrainian drone attack against air bases deep in the country.

The Ukrainian security service, known under its acronym SBU, said it has damaged the foundations of the Kerch bridge connecting Russia and illegally annexed Crimea – a key artery for Russian military supplies during the war.

The SBU said that it had exploded 1,100 kilograms (2,400 pounds) of explosives on the seabed during the night, in an operation that took several months to install. It was the third Ukrainian strike on the bridge since the invasion by Russia of its neighbor in February 2022, said the SBU.

“The bridge is now effective in an emergency,” said SBU.

He said no civilian had been killed or injured in the operation. It was not possible to independently confirm the assertions.

Traffic across the Kerch bridge was interrupted for three hours early on Tuesday, but reopened at 9 am, official Russian social networks said. He closed for a second time at 3:20 p.m.

The Ukrainian President called the attack on Sumy as a “completely deliberate” strike against civilians.

“That’s all you need to know about Russia’s” desire “to end this war,” wrote the Ukrainian president on social networks.

Zelenskyy called on global pressure and “the decisive action of the United States, Europe and all in the world that holds power”. Without that, he said, Russian President Vladimir Putin “will not even accept a cease-fire”.

The war killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides along the front line of approximately 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) where the attrition war is weighing despite the efforts led by the US to negotiate a peace agreement.

Although Russia has a larger army and more economic resources than Ukraine, the Ukrainian drone attack over the weekend has damaged or destroyed more than 40 war planes in the air bases deep in Russia, said Ukrainian officials, presenting it as a hard blow for the Kremlin Arsenal and military prestige.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that the Ukrainian attack put several planes on the other hand in two air bases, but said the soldiers had pushed attempts to attack against three other air bases.

Zelenskyy and Putin were both impatient to show American President Donald Trump that they share his ambition to end the fighting – and to avoid possible punitive measures of Washington. Ukraine has accepted a cease-fire proposed by the United States, but the Kremlin actually rejected it. Putin clearly indicated that any peace regulation must be on its conditions.

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The delegations of the teams at war agreed on Monday to exchange troops dead and wounded, but their conditions to end the war remained away.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who is now deputy chief of the country’s Security Council chaired by Putin, said on Tuesday that there would be no break in the invasion of Russia.

“Istanbul talks are not to hit a compromise for someone else’s delusional conditions, but to ensure our rapid victory and the complete destruction of the (Ukrainian government),” he said.

In an apparent comment on the latest Ukrainian strikes, he said that “remuneration is inevitable”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to the suggestions that an face-to-face meeting between Putin, Trump and Zelenskyy could break the blockage, saying that the possibility was “improbable in the near future”.

Meanwhile, a high Ukrainian delegation led by the first Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of the Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko, went to Washington for discussions on defense, sanctions and post-war recovery, said Andrii Yermak, head of the presidential office of Ukraine.

The delegation will meet representatives of the two main American political parties, as well as advisers to Trump, added Yermak.

The kyiv Ukrainians praised strikes on the Russian air bases, but were dark about the prospects of a peace agreement.

“Russia has invested too much resources in this war to … stop for nothing,” said soldier Oleh Nikolenko, 43.

His wife, Anastasia Nikolenko, a 38 -year -old designer, said diplomacy could not stop fighting. “We must show for force, by physical force, that we cannot be defeated,” she said.

Russia recently expanded its attacks on Sumy and the Kharkiv region following Putin’s promise from creating a buffer area along the border which could prevent long -range Ukrainian attacks striking the Russian soil. Sumy, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border, had a population from around 250,000.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that its troops had taken the Ukrainian village of Andriivka, near the border in the Sumy region. Ukraine has made no immediate comments on the complaint, which could not be verified independently.

Russia has also drawn rocket artillery in the village of Chystavodivka in the Kharkiv region, killing two people and injuring three others, said regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.