Explosions have been reported at the Kerch Bridge in Crimea which links Russia to the occupied territory.

Russian-appointed officials claim to have shot down two drones in the area and have said the Bridge is not damaged, although traffic has been temporarily halted.

Video of the bridge shows smoke billowing off the bridge itself.

The news comes after Russian troops shot down 20 drones over Crimea overnight.

Fourteen drones were shot down by Russian air defences and a further six were jammed electronically, the ministry said in a Telegram post. No casualties or damage were reported.

The overnight attacks followed three consecutive days of drone attacks on the Russian capital, Moscow

Firing drones at Russia, after more than 17 months of war has little apparent military value for Ukraine, but the strategy has served to unsettle Russians and bring home to them the conflict’s consequences.

Drone attacks have increased in recent weeks both on Moscow and on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 – a move that most of the world considered illegal.

Kyiv officials neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s possible involvement in the attempted attacks.

Elsewhere, Russia claimed it has regained control of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk region in an overnight counter-attack.

A 73-year-old woman was killed early on Saturday morning in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Ukrainian internal affairs minister Ihor Klymenko said a police officer was killed and 12 people were wounded when a guided Russian aerial bomb hit the city of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Four of the wounded were also police officers, he said.

On Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, the city of Odesa opened several beaches for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Odesa governor Oleh Kiper said that six beaches were open, but he stressed that accessing beaches during air raid alerts was forbidden.

The strategic port and key hub for exporting grain has been subject to repeated missile and drone attacks – particularly since Moscow cancelled a landmark grain deal last month amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories – while Russian mines have regularly washed up on the city’s beaches.

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