Five Russians are among eight people arrested in connection with the explosion that caused rail and cars on the Crimean bridge of 3.6 million dollars, the Russian intelligence service said on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s military intelligence service was behind Saturday’s attack on the 12-mile bridge, the longest in Europe, the FSB said. he said in a speech. Ukrainian officials praised the incident but have not officially claimed responsibility for the explosion, which Russia says killed three people.
“Currently, five citizens of Russia, three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia, who participated in the preparation of the crime, have been detained as part of the crime,” the FSB said, adding that several other detainees were involved in the incident. plan.
The FSB said the bombs were shipped out of the Ukrainian city of Odesa in August, and that three Ukrainians, two Georgians and an Armenian citizen were behind the plan to send them from Bulgaria through Georgia to Russia.
A Ukrainian citizen and five arrested Russians prepared documents for a non-existent Crimean company to receive explosives, the agency said. The investigation was ongoing.
Other events:
NATO defense ministers met on Wednesday in Brussels to plan a plan to supply Ukraine with more weapons.
►Russian President Vladimir Putin met on Wednesday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Kazakhstan on the sidelines of a regional summit, Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said. Erdoğan is committed to dialogue between Russia and the West.
Biden: No progress in efforts to free Brittney Griner from Russian prison
US officials have made no progress in freeing WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner from a Moscow prison, President Joe Biden said Wednesday. Biden told reporters, asked if there was any movement in the Griner case, he answered “Not with Putin.”
Biden, in an interview on Tuesday with CNNsaid he had “no intention” of meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit next month in Indonesia – but that he would consider a conversation if Putin said he wanted to talk about Griner.
Griner, who plays basketball in Russia during the WNBA offseason, was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow in February on drug charges. He admitted that he had vape cans containing cannabis oil in his bag, but testified that he had accidentally packed them and had no intent to commit a crime. He was sentenced to nine years in prison; His appeal hearing is scheduled for October 25.
– Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY
Putin blames the US for the pipeline explosion, says Russia is ready to resume gas flows
Putin said on Wednesday that Russia is ready to resume the flow of gas to Europe via the only remaining link of the Nord Stream gas pipeline – and again blamed the US for the explosion that disrupted the system. The spokeswoman for the German government, Ms. Christiane Hoffmann, rejected the plan, saying that Russia has been selling unreliable gas since the start of the war.
European authorities are investigating the explosion that tore through the connections of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and one of the two connections of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. US officials have dismissed Putin’s claims that the US wanted to disrupt efforts to encourage Europe to import cheaper natural gas.
Experts discuss Putin’s threat to use nukes in Ukraine
What does Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons mean for the security of millions of people in Ukraine and around the world, including the United States, where Russian nuclear weapons can easily reach?
USA TODAY spoke to Mowatt-Larssen, the former head of the CIA and many other nuclear security experts and analysts. All of these experts agreed with Biden’s assessment that the current situation is fraught with potential danger, including if the increasingly busy Putin decides to deploy one of the small nuclear weapons in his arsenal. Here’s what the experts had to say.
– Josh Meyer, USA TODAY
Ukraine receives artillery, air defense systems from the US, Germany
Ukraine received its first IRIS-T system from Germany and four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems from the US, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Wednesday. The deployment was rushed after Russian missiles hit cities in Ukraine on Monday in retaliation for a truck bomb that damaged a key Russian-built bridge in Crimea.
The US also announced plans to send Ukraine eight National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); two are expected to be delivered in the near future.
“A new era of air defense has begun,” Reznikov said. “There is a moral imperative to save the sky to save our people.”
The explosive Kremlin plans to rebuild Ukraine by freezing Russian assets
The proposal by the Group of Seven (G-7) to use frozen Russian assets to support the reconstruction of Ukraine was strongly criticized by Moscow.
“It’s just international competition,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
A G-7 statement released after Tuesday’s meeting called for “the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, including finding ways to do so with money from Russia.” After the attacks began in February, the West imposed sanctions on the Bank of Russia. In addition to the freezing of Russian gold and foreign currency reserves, all transactions related to the security management and property of the Bank of Russia, as well as transactions with any legal entity that fell under the ban.
