Ukraine-Russia latest updates: Moscow names new general

Ukraine’s economy has shrunk by an estimated 30 percent in the first three quarters of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021, largely due to Russia’s invasion, the country’s economy ministry said.

Bad weather in September that slowed the pace of harvesting also played a role, as did interruptions in supply from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the ministry said in a statement. Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of shelling the facility.

“The situation at the front improved in September, but the enemy continued shelling Ukrainian territory, which put pressure on business sentiment and logistics,” the ministry said.

“Further destruction of production facilities, infrastructure and residential buildings,” as well as uncertainty over how long the war would last, were hindering development and postponing the recovery, it said.

Inside Russia, the narrative around the “war” is changing.

The pro-war Putin faithful are grappling with defeats they never expected, and generals are taking the flak from public figures, loyalists on state TV channels, and even military bloggers.

A top Turkish official says Ankara wants the Ukraine grain deal, which expires next month, to be extended

“We discussed this issue with the Ukrainian side. They have a positive view about this idea. We are also discussing the issue with the Russians,” Ibrahim Kalin, the Turkish presidential spokesperson, told CNN.

“They have some concerns about sending their own crops, ammonia and fertilisers. They had an agreement with the UN. So, they are trying to work out some details. These were some of the problems,” he explained.

The landmark deal was signed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN in Istanbul on July 22 to resume grain exports from Ukrainian ports that were halted since the start of the war in late February.

Interfax news agency reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered tighter security for the bridge from Russia to Crimea, as well as the infrastructure supplying electricity and natural gas to the peninsula.

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.

A key bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula with mainland Russia has been partially destroyed in a truck explosion, Russian media reported, putting at risk a key supply route for Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, called it “an act of war” as the country’s investigative committee said it had “initiated a criminal case in connection with the incident on the Crimean bridge,” adding that “a truck was blown up”.

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall reports from Moscow.

Alexandre Vautravers, editor-in-chief at Swiss Military Review, says the Crimea bridge explosion could have been caused by something other than the truck blast alone.

“The possibility of a truck carrying explosives, and we’re talking about several hundred kilos of explosives, is probably not going to produce this much damage,” Vautravers told Al Jazeera.

“Certainly, it is going to ruin the asphalt, the visible part of the bridge, the functional part of the bridge, but definitely the structure is not going to be necessarily impacted,” he added.

“We need to take with a grain of salt the story to us about how this truck arrives there and all of a sudden produced all of this damage,” he said.

EU leaders meeting in Prague have failed to agree on a price cap for gas.

That is despite most member states agreeing it is the best solution to bring down sky-high energy costs driven up by the war in Ukraine.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen reports from Prague, Czech Republic.

Russia’s Transport Ministry says limited road traffic for cars and buses has resumed on intact lanes of the Crimean bridge which was hit by an explosion early in the morning.

The ministry said traffic would for now be restricted to crossing between Crimea and the Russian Taman Peninsula in alternating directions.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed governor of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014, said on social media that heavy goods vehicles would have to wait to cross by ferry.

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht says NATO must do more for common security to protect itself against the potential acts of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.

“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.

“We’ve heard Russia’s threats to Lithuania which was implementing European sanctions on the border with Kaliningrad. This is not nearly the first threats and we must take them seriously and be prepared,” she added.

General Sergei Surovikin has been named as the new overall commander of Russian forces engaged in Ukraine, according to a statement from the defence ministry.

The change follows the reported sacking earlier this week of the commanders of two of Russia’s five military regions.

The Ukrainian post office has announced that it is preparing to print stamps showing the “Crimean bridge – or more precisely, what remains of it”.

The head of the institution, Igor Smelyansky, posted a design for the new stamps on Facebook – one depicting an explosion on the structure.

Overnight shelling that cut the power line supplying cooling systems at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine was “tremendously irresponsible”, according to the UN atomic watchdog.

“The resumption of shelling, hitting the plant’s sole source of external power, is tremendously irresponsible,” the International Atomic Energy Agency quoted its chief Rafael Grossi as saying, confirming that the plant is now relying on diesel generators.

Grossi would visit Russia and Ukraine “soon” to discuss setting up a protection zone at the plant, it added.

Railway traffic on a damaged road-and-rail bridge linking Russia and the Crimean Peninsula will resume at 8pm (17:00 GMT), Russia’s Interfax news agency has reported, citing the transport ministry.

Three people have been found dead so far in a truck explosion on a bridge linking Russia to Crimea, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.

“They are believed to be passengers of a car that was near the truck that exploded. The bodies of two victims, a man and a woman, have already been recovered from the water and their identities are being established,” the committee said in a statement.

The investigators have also established the details of the truck and its owner, registered in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, and begun searching his place of residence, it added.

Russia’s Defence Ministry says its troops fighting in the Mykolaiv, Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhia regions of southern Ukraine could receive all the supplies they needed via existing land and sea corridors after a bridge linking Russia to Crimea was badly damaged by a blast.

Saturday’s explosion on the road-and-rail bridge, which has been used to take Russian men and military supplies through the peninsula into other parts of southern Ukraine, brought down sections of the road taking traffic in one direction and also damaged railway tracks.

Chris Bellamy, a professor emeritus of maritime security at the University of Greenwich, says the recent blast on a key bridge in Crimea is a major setback for Russia.

The incident is “an incredibly important setback both from a logistics point of view and for prestige”, he told Al Jazeera.

Bellamy said the bridge carried a huge amount of road and railway traffic crucial for the Russian army to supply itself in Crimea.

“The bridge was heavily protected not only by the Russian army and navy but by President Vladimir Putin’s personal presidential guard,” he added.

“So it may be just a bit of luck, but it is an incredibly successful strike … assuming it was carried out by Ukrainians,” Bellamy said.

Russia’s foreign ministry says Ukraine’s reaction to a huge blast that ripped through the bridge linking Moscow-annexed Crimea to the mainland showed Kyiv’s “terrorist nature”.

“The reaction of the Kyiv regime to the destruction of civilian infrastructure shows its terrorist nature,” the ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from Kyiv, said there is “jubilation” in Ukraine after a blast at a key Crimea bridge that reportedly collapsed parts of it.

“This does strike at Vladimir Putin’s prestige. It does strike Vladimir Putin’s image of control. And I think under the bravado of Ukraine at the moment, there might be some nervousness about what his response might be to this,” Challands said.

“It also gives the Russians a very big headache when it comes to supplying their southern front in Ukraine because the [Russian] army … at the moment is largely supplied by rail networks and that main railway network for the southern front came through Crimea across the Kerch bridge,” he added.

Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has lost its connection to an external power supply as a result of shelling, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom says, blaming Russia.

Energoatom added that the plant was now getting power to cover its own needs from its backup diesel generators.

“The diesel generators started automatically. The available supplies of diesel fuel for their operation in this mode will be enough for 10 days,” the company wrote on Telegram.

Russia has ordered setting up a commission to look into the blast, according to Russian news agencies.

Russia’s powerful investigative committee opened a criminal inquiry into the explosion and sent detectives to the scene, saying a truck exploded “on the automobile part of the Crimean bridge from the side of the Taman Peninsula”.

This “caused seven fuel tanks to ignite on a train heading towards the Crimea Peninsula. As a result, two lanes partially collapsed”.

While officials in Moscow stopped short of blaming Kyiv, an official in Russian-installed Crimea pointed the finger at “Ukrainian vandals”.