WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Drone attack on ammunition depot in Crimea prompts evacuation, bridge closure

A drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted authorities to evacuate a 5-km (3-mile) radius and briefly suspend road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, the region's Moscow-installed governor said on Saturday.

Ukraine said its army had destroyed an oil depot and Russian army warehouses in what it called the "temporarily occupied" district of Oktiabrske in central Crimea.

The attack caused an ammunition depot to explode, said Russian-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov, adding there was no reported damage or casualties. Footage shared by state media showed a thick cloud of grey smoke at the site.

Aksyonov later said that all rail traffic in the affected area, temporarily disrupted, was back to normal operation.

Russian news agencies quoted the Health Ministry as saying 12 people required medical assistance and four were taken to hospital.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of the country.

The brief halting of traffic on the Crimean Bridge, about 180 km (110 miles) to the east of the drone incident, came five days after explosions there killed two people and damaged a section of roadway - the second major attack on the bridge since the start of the war.

The 19 km (12 mile) road and rail bridge is a vital logistics link for Russian forces, and is also heavily used by Russian tourists who flock to Crimea in summer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that the bridge was a legitimate target because it was a military supply route for Russia.

"This is the route used to feed the war with ammunition and this is being done on a daily basis," he said.

Russia is on high alert for incidents at the bridge, and an official Telegram channel tells people not to panic in the event of an alarm.

In a further sign of security concerns in Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to Aksyonov, warned people not to post images of critical infrastructure on the internet.

He urged people who knew the authors of such posts to report them to the interior ministry or the FSB security service.

"Remember that a video posted on the web of military or other critical facilities is work for the enemy," he said.

** War reporter's death prompts Russian outrage over Ukraine's alleged use of cluster bombs

A Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded in Ukraine on Saturday in what the defence ministry said was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions, prompting outrage from Moscow.

In a separate incident, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said one of its journalists, Yevgeny Shilko, had been wounded elsewhere in Ukraine in a Russian attack with cluster munitions that killed a Ukrainian soldier. It said his life was not in danger.

Cluster bombs are in the spotlight after Ukraine received supplies of them from the United States this month. Many countries ban them because they rain shrapnel over a wide area and can pose a risk to civilians. Some bomblets typically fail to explode immediately, but can blow up years later.

Reuters could not independently verify the use of such weapons in either incident on Saturday. Both sides have used them in the course of Russia's 17-month invasion of Ukraine.

The dead Russian journalist was named as Rostislav Zhuravlev, a war correspondent for state news agency RIA. His three colleagues were evacuated from the battlefield after coming under fire in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the defence ministry said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced what she called "criminal terror" by Ukraine and said, without providing evidence, that the attack appeared deliberate.

"Those responsible for the brutal reprisal against a Russian journalist will inevitably suffer well-deserved punishment. The entire measure of responsibility will be shared by those who supplied cluster munitions to their Kyiv protégés," she said.

No comment was immediately available from Ukraine on the incident.

Ukraine has pledged to use cluster munitions only to dislodge concentrations of enemy soldiers. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said this week that Ukrainian forces were using them appropriately and effectively against Russian formations.

Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy speaker of the Russian upper house of parliament, said the use of the weapons was "inhuman" and the responsibility lay both with Ukraine and the United States. Leonid Slutsky, a party leader in the lower house, called it a "monstrous crime".

Their reactions ignored the fact that Russia's own use of cluster bombs in the war has been documented by human rights groups and by the U.N.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in May that Russian forces had used the weapons in attacks that had caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged homes, hospitals and schools.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine attacks Russia's Belgorod region with cluster munitions – governor

Ukraine has targeted a village in Russia’s Belgorod Region with cluster munitions, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.

At least three cluster munitions were employed by Kiev's forces during a large-scale attack on the settlement of Zhuravlevka, Gladkov wrote on Telegram on Saturday.

According to the governor, 21 artillery shells and ten mortar rounds were also fired at the village. It was also targeted by a kamikaze drone.

No casualties or damage were repoted in Zhuravlevka as a result of the shelling, Gladkov said.

He added that smaller artillery, mortar and drone attacks targeted at least a dozen other settlements in Belgorod Region on the same day.

In the village of Ilek-Penkovka, 12 households were affected by an explosion, with the facades of buildings being damaged and windows shattered, he said, but that injuries had been avoided.

The US announced the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine earlier this month, with President Joe Biden describing it as a stopgap measure that was necessary due to a shortage of regular artillery rounds among Kiev’s Western backers.

The controversial shells, which contain multiple bomblets that are dispersed over a large area, have been banned in more than 100 countries. However, neither Ukraine, the US, nor Russia are signatories of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).

Washington admitted that it was aware of the increased risk posed by cluster munitions for the civilian population, but claimed that Kiev had pledged to deploy them responsibly and steer clear of densely populated areas.

On Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the Ukrainian forces had begun using US-supplied cluster munitions on the battlefield. They were doing so “quite effectively,”he claimed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin noted last week that the US itself had earlier branded the use of cluster munitions “a crime,” saying this was exactly how he regarded the delivery of such weapons to Kiev by Washington.

The Russian military has a “sufficient” stock of cluster munitions, which it can also put to use in a tit-for-tat response to such weapons being deployed by Ukraine, the president warned.

** Kiev used grain deal to stock up on military supplies – Russia

Ukraine has used the Black Sea grain deal to accumulate sizable military and fuel supplies, Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky told the organization’s Security Council (UNSC) on Friday. EU nations have also exploited the agreement to reap profits from cheap Ukrainian food products, he said.

Since the UN-facilitated deal was introduced a year ago, “the Kiev regime has built up significant military and industrial [supplies], as well as fuel… storage capacities in the areas near its Black Sea ports,” the diplomat said during a UNSC meeting convened after Russia’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.

A large number of Ukrainian soldiers and foreign mercenaries have also been stationed in the areas protected under the deal, he said, adding that Russia could “remedy this situation” now that it has left the deal.

The Ukrainian military did not hesitate to use the humanitarian corridors reserved for the grain shipments to launch attacks on the Russian military and civilian targets, Polyansky said, adding that neither the UN nor Western nations had reacted to such attacks in any way. “Do you just want us to put up with it?” asked the envoy.

The Russian military repeatedly reported on Ukrainian attempts to strike targets in Crimea with both aerial and naval drones, which were mostly thwarted by Russian defense systems. In May, Moscow stated that the Ukrainian forces had taken advantage of the grain corridors to stage attacks on Crimea.

The deal itself, which was initially touted as a humanitarian initiative aimed at helping the poorest nations to avoid a food crisis, was ultimately “commercialized” by the West, Polyansky said.

“Europeans, who buy Ukrainian food products at give-away prices, then process them and re-sell them as manufactured goods with high added value,” he continued, adding that EU nations are “benefiting twice” from the deal. “Tell me, where is the goal of providing the poorest nations with food here?” he asked.

Moscow has repeatedly stressed that only a tiny percentage of the grain exported from Ukraine as part of the agreement has been shipped to such nations, while the bulk of it has ended up in Europe. On Friday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto also stated that “95% of exported Ukrainian grain does not go to Africa.” He blamed this for rising food prices on the continent, which were “destabilizing regions that are already in difficulty.”

The US Department of Agriculture also said in its July report that almost half of all Ukrainian wheat exports ended up in the EU after the grain deal was struck. Türkiye imported almost a quarter of Ukraine’s wheat over the same period, and only roughly one-fifth went to the “rest of the world,” the report showed.

Reuters/RT