According to AFP, relatives and friends of the two Russians killed in the attack on the Kerch bridge, which connects Russian territory with the Crimean peninsula, attended the funeral of the couple whose teenage daughter was also injured on Thursday.
The bodies of Oleksiy and Natalia Kulik were laid in coffins in the church in Novoy Oskol of the Belgorod region, on the border with Ukraine, where dozens of people laid wreaths before the Orthodox mass.
The couple were killed late Sunday in a naval drone strike attributed to Ukraine that damaged a strategic bridge linking Russia with the Ukrainian peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014, for the second time.
At the time of the explosion, the tourists were driving along the bridge with their daughter, who was injured but survived. Now she is being treated in Moscow.
Russian authorities have not banned access to Crimea, a favorite summer vacation spot, despite close-quarters fighting and regular bombings or drone attacks targeting Russian troops on the peninsula.
“This is an irreparable loss that hit us all hard. A young and beautiful family, the family of Natalya and Oleksiy, was killed by the will of fate,” Nataliya Tkachenko, a colleague of the mother, who works in the department of education in Novy Oskol, told AFP.
Citing the deaths of two civilians on Monday and the damage to a bridge that is strategically important for supplying Russian troops in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a “response” and ordered increased security around infrastructure that has been targeted for the second time since the conflict began in Ukraine.
According to Kyiv, over the next three nights, the Russian military carried out massive shelling of the port of Odesa and the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, destroying port infrastructure and killing at least two civilians and injuring 12 others.
A source in the Ukrainian security services (SBU) confirmed to AFP on Monday that the attack on the bridge in Crimea was carried out by Kiev with the help of maritime drones.
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Source: Hot News
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