After the Pivdennyi Bridge was attacked, passengers described how dust from a blast wave entered their carriage through the ventilation system.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin had decided that there were “no rules now” when attacking Ukraine.
In an interview with the Financial Times, he said: “The Russians have failed to occupy us. So now they are carrying out massive attacks and mass killings.”
He added: “They want to destroy our bridges… our data centres, the internet, mobile networks, hospitals, kindergartens, schools, universities – everything. They want people to flee their cities.”
Putin on Thursday insisted that Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian economic targets were a direct response to Ukraine’s strikes on Russia’s oil refineries and its ships in the Black Sea.
“Now from every direction we’re receiving calls ‘let’s stop’. But they started it,” Putin said after a wide-ranging speech at the Valdai foreign policy forum.
The Kremlin leader admitted Kyiv had “got some results” from its refinery attacks and Russia had lost about 1% of its GDP. Ukraine maintains it began attacking Russian oil infrastructure because it helps the Kremlin finance the war.
Russia has targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, ramping up attacks every winter since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.
