Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 229

Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, October 10.

Conflict

• Russia struck cities across Ukraine during rush hour on Monday morning, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure.
• The attacks seem to be in retaliation for an explosion on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to Russia, that Moscow blamed on Ukraine. Russia said it is investigating the blast that partially damaged the 19km (12-mile) bridge.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said 11 infrastructure facilities in eight regions and the capital Kyiv were damaged.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to wipe his country “off the face of the earth”.
• Russia’s President Vladimir Putin warned Ukraine that there would be a harsh response if there were any further attacks such as that on the Crimean Bridge.
• Russian shelling destroyed an apartment building in the latest attack on civilian infrastructure in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said.
• Russian troops are coming closer to the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut, a British intelligence update said on Monday.
• Traffic on the vital Kerch Bridge – a supply route for Russian forces – has resumed, while the Russian transport ministry, quoted by RIA news agency, said nearly 1,500 people and 162 heavy cargoes had travelled by ferry across the Kerch Strait since the explosion.
• The external power supply to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been restored, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom and the UN’s nuclear watchdog said.

Economy, diplomacy

• The United States’s White House said it would continue to arm Ukraine but declined direct comment on the explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge.
• The Kremlin praised OPEC+ for agreeing on production cuts that countered the “mayhem” sown by the US in global energy markets.
• Ukraine’s economy shrank an estimated 30 percent in the first three quarters of 2022 from the same period in 2021, with bad harvest weather compounding the impact of the war, the economy ministry said.
• China’s foreign ministry called for de-escalation in Ukraine after the explosions on Monday.
• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Belarus and Russia will deploy a joint military task force.
•  Putin may meet Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan this week to discuss a Turkish proposal to host talks between Russia and the West on Ukraine, the Kremlin said.
• Group of Seven leaders will hold a call on Tuesday with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, British Prime Minister Liz Truss’s spokesman said.