A railroad bridge over the Volga river near the Russian city of Samara was damaged by an explosion on Monday, the RIA news agency reported, citing emergency services.
While no one was reported killed or injured in the incident, authorities suspended rail traffic on the bridge. The Samara region in southwestern Russia is one of the country’s heavy industry centers.
According to Tass, the incident, described by Russian Railways as “illegal interference”, was caused by an explosive device.
Russia has reported a series of attacks on its industrial and logistics infrastructure in recent months and blames Ukraine for these attacks.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said it intercepted 38 Ukrainian drones over the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Kiev in 2014. A bridge connecting Crimea to Russian territory was closed to traffic for about two hours earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, the death toll from Sunday’s Russian drone strike in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa rose to 11 as authorities pulled the bodies of two children and a young mother from the rubble.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Western allies to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses after Saturday’s deadly attack.
On Saturday, China’s special envoy to Ukraine held talks with senior Russian diplomats in Moscow on the first leg of a European trip that will include Brussels, Poland, Germany and France, Chinese and Russian state media reported.
Special envoy Li Hui and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin agreed that negotiations are the only way to end the conflict in Ukraine, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
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