Russia says three killed in Crimea bridge blast, army leadership changed

An object thought to be a fuel storage tank caught fire and that traffic has been stopped on the bridge. (Reuters)
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Updated 08 October 2022
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Russia says three killed in Crimea bridge blast, army leadership changed

  • Images shared on social media purported to show fire and damage to the span
  • The crossing is a pair of road and rail bridges that Russia built after it seized and annexed Crimea

CRIMEA: Russia on Saturday said three people were killed in after a truck exploded on its bridge linking Crimea — a symbol of its annexation of the peninsula — without immediately blaming Ukraine.
On the same day, after Moscow suffered a series of setbacks on the battlefield that triggered unprecedented criticism of its army at home, Moscow appointed a new general to lead its Ukraine offensive.
The blast ripped through the 19-kilometer bridge more than seven months into Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, although local authorities said it had reopened to motor traffic with vehicles subject to stringent screening.
Dramatic social media footage showed the bridge on fire with parts plunging into the water.
Russian investigators said three people were killed and that two bodies — a man and a woman — were pulled out of the water after the bridge had partially collapsed.
They were likely to be passengers of a car that was driving near the exploded truck and that their identities were being established, Moscow said.
It had also identified the owner of the truck as a resident of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, saying his place of residence was being searched.
Russia said the blast — which occurred just after 6 am local time — set ablaze seven oil tankers transported by train and collapsed two car lanes of the giant road and rail structure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday ordered tighter security for the bridge 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. 
The bridge, personally inaugurated by Putin in 2018, is a vital transport link for carrying military equipment to Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
It is hugely important to the Kremlin, and Moscow had maintained the bridge crossing was safe despite the fighting.
While some in Moscow hinted at Ukrainian “terrorism,” state media continued to call it an “emergency situation.”
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak earlier took to Twitter posting a picture of a long section of the bridge half-submerged.
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning,” he wrote.
“Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything occupied by Russia must be expelled.”
The Ukrainian post office announced it was preparing to print stamps showing the “Crimean bridge — or more precisely, what remains of it.”
The Kremlin’s spokesman said Putin had ordered a commission to be set up to look into the blast on the bridge which is hugely symbolic and logistically crucial for Moscow.
Officials in Moscow stopped short of blaming Kyiv.
But a Russian-installed official in Crimea pointed the finger at “Ukrainian vandals.” Another in the neighboring Kherson region said repairs could “take two months.”
And the spokeswoman of Russia’s foreign ministry said that Kyiv’s reaction to the blasts showed its “terrorist nature.”
Some officials in Moscow and in Russian-occupied Ukraine called for retaliation.
“There is an undisguised terrorist war against us,” Russian ruling party deputy Oleg Morozov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
A Russian-installed official in the occupied Ukrainian Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, said: “Everyone is waiting for a retaliatory strike and it is likely to come.”
There have been several explosions at Russian military installations in the Crimean peninsula.
If it is established that Ukraine was behind the latest blast, alarm bells may sound with the bridge so far from the frontline.
Authorities in Crimea appeared to downplay the blasts and tried to calm fears of food and fuel shortages in Crimea, which is fully reliant on the Russian mainland since Moscow annexed it in 2014.
At around 1400 GMT, Moscow-appointed head of the peninsula, Sergei Askyonov, said car traffic had resumed on the bridge but that all vehicles were being inspected.
“Road traffic has begun on the Crimea bridge,” he said on Telegram.
The blasts come after Ukraine’s recent lightning territorial gains in the east and south that have undermined the Kremlin’s claim that it annexed Donetsk, neighboring Lugansk and the southern regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
After several weeks of crushing military defeats, Moscow on Saturday announced that a new general — Sergei Surovikin — would take over its forces in Ukraine.
The decision — made public in an unusual move — comes after the setbacks on the battlefield led to growing discontent among the elite toward the army’s leadership.
This month, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov had called for a top general to be fired in Ukraine after Russian forces lost control of the key city of Lyman.
Senior Russian lawmaker Andrei separately urged officers to stop “lying” about the situation on the battlefield.
Surovikin previously led Russia’s forces in southern Ukraine. He has combat experience in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya, as well as, more recently, in Syria.
Also on Saturday, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region that borders Ukraine said Kyiv’s forces had fired at a Russian border village, injuring a teenage girl.
But Russian forces had made some gains in eastern Ukraine this week.
On Friday, Moscow said its forces had captured ground in Donetsk in east Ukraine, their first claim of new gains since a Kyiv counter-offensive rattled Moscow’s military campaign.
The Donetsk region, which has been partially controlled by Kremlin-backed separatists for years, is a key prize for Russian forces, which sent troops to Ukraine in February.

(With AFP and Reuters)


Pakistan locks down capital ahead of a planned rally by Imran Khan supporters

Updated 56 min 49 sec ago
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Pakistan locks down capital ahead of a planned rally by Imran Khan supporters

  • Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days
  • Pakistan has banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is sealing off its capital, Islamabad, ahead of a planned rally by supporters of imprisoned former premier Imran Khan.
It’s the second time in as many months that authorities have imposed such measures to thwart tens of thousands of people from gathering in the city to demand Khan’s release.
The latest lockdown coincides with the visit of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrives in Islamabad on Monday.
Local media reported that the Interior Ministry is considering a suspension of mobile phone services in parts of Pakistan in the coming days. On Friday, the National Highways and Motorway Police announced that key routes would close for maintenance.
It advised people to avoid unnecessary travel and said the decision was taken following intelligence reports that “angry protesters” are planning to create a law and order situation and damage public and private property on Sunday, the day of the planned rally.
“There are reports that protesters are coming with sticks and slingshots,” the statement added.
Multicolored shipping containers, a familiar sight to people living and working in Islamabad, reappeared on key roads Saturday to throttle traffic.
Pakistan has already banned gatherings of five or more people in Islamabad for two months to deter Khan’s supporters and activists from his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI.
Khan has been in prison for more than a year in connection and has over 150 criminal cases against him. But he remains popular and the PTI says the cases are politically motivated.
A three-day shutdown was imposed in Islamabad for a security summit last month.


Indian man awakes on funeral pyre

Updated 23 November 2024
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Indian man awakes on funeral pyre

  • Doctors sent Rohitash Kumar, 25, to mortuary instead of conducting postmortem after he fell ill
  • Kumar was rushed to hospital on Friday for treatment but was confirmed dead later

JAIPUR: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.


NATO chief discusses ‘global security’ with Trump

Updated 23 November 2024
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NATO chief discusses ‘global security’ with Trump

  • NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security

Brussels: NATO chief Mark Rutte held talks with US President-elect Donald Trump in Florida on the “global security issues facing the alliance,” a spokeswoman said Saturday.
The meeting took place on Friday in Palm Beach, NATO’s Farah Dakhlallah said in a statement.
In his first term Trump aggressively pushed Europe to step up defense spending and questioned the fairness of the NATO transatlantic alliance.
The former Dutch prime minister had said he wanted to meet Trump two days after Trump was elected on November 5, and discuss the threat of increasingly warming ties between North Korea and Russia.
Trump’s thumping victory to return to the US presidency has set nerves jangling in Europe that he could pull the plug on vital Washington military aid for Ukraine.
NATO allies say keeping Kyiv in the fight against Moscow is key to both European and American security.
“What we see more and more is that North Korea, Iran, China and of course Russia are working together, working together against Ukraine,” Rutte said recently at a European leaders’ meeting in Budapest.
“At the same time, Russia has to pay for this, and one of the things they are doing is delivering technology to North Korea,” which he warned was threatening to the “mainland of the US (and) continental Europe.”
“I look forward to sitting down with Donald Trump to discuss how we can face these threats collectively,” Rutte said.


Indian man awakes on funeral pyre

Updated 23 November 2024
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Indian man awakes on funeral pyre

JAIPUR, India: An Indian man awoke on a funeral pyre moments before it was to be set on fire after a doctor skipped a postmortem, medical officials said Saturday.
Rohitash Kumar, 25, who had speaking and hearing difficulties, had fallen sick and was taken to a hospital in Jhunjhunu in the western state of Rajasthan on Thursday.
Indian media reported he had had an epileptic seizure, and a doctor declared him dead on arrival at the hospital.
But instead of the required postmortem to ascertain the cause of death, doctors sent him to the mortuary, and then to be burned according to Hindu rites.
D. Singh, chief medical officer of the hospital, told AFP that a doctor had “prepared the postmortem report without actually doing the postmortem, and the body was then sent for cremation.”
Singh said that “shortly before the pyre was to be lit, Rohitash’s body started movements,” adding that “he was alive and was breathing.”
Kumar was rushed to hospital for a second time, but was confirmed dead on Friday during treatment.
Authorities have suspended the services of three doctors and the police have launched an investigation.


Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people

Updated 23 November 2024
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Fighting between armed sectarian groups in restive northwestern Pakistan kills at least 33 people

  • Senior police officer said Saturday armed men torched shops, houses and government property overnight
  • Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram

PESHAWAR: Fighting between armed Sunni and Shiite groups in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 33 people and injured 25 others, a senior police officer from the region said Saturday.
The overnight violence was the latest to rock Kurram, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and comes days after a deadly gun ambush killed 42 people.
Shiite Muslims make up about 15 percent of the 240 million people in Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.
Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions remain, especially in Kurram.
The senior police officer said armed men in Bagan and Bacha Kot torched shops, houses and government property.
Intense gunfire was ongoing between the Alizai and Bagan tribes in the Lower Kurram area.
“Educational institutions in Kurram are closed due to the severe tension. Both sides are targeting each other with heavy and automatic weapons,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Videos shared with The Associated Press showed a market engulfed by fire and orange flames piercing the night sky. Gunfire can also be heard.
The location of Thursday’s attack was also targeted by armed men, who marched on the area.
Survivors of the gun ambush said assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.
Dozens of people from the district’s Sunni and Shiite communities have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.