TOP HEADLINES

· Divers are to examine on Sunday the damage from a powerful blast on a Crimea bridge that is a key supply route to Russian forces in southern Ukraine. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said a more detailed survey above the waterline is expected to be complete by day's end.

· At least 12 people were killed and 49 hospitalized as a result of shelling in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, the region's governor Oleksandr Starukh said. "There may be more people under the rubble," Starukh said on Telegram. "A rescue operation is underway at the scene. Eight people have already been rescued."

· Ukrainian troops are involved in tough fighting near the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut, which Russia is trying to take, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

· Russia's Defense Ministry named Air Force General Sergei Surovikin as the overall commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, Moscow's third senior military appointment in a week.

· Shelling cut power to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which needs cooling to avoid a meltdown, forcing it to switch to emergency generators, Ukraine's state nuclear company and the United Nations atomic watchdog said on Saturday.

· 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. But exports jumped 23 percent on month in September after an internationally brokered deal allowed Black Sea grain shipments.

· The Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project in Russia is very important for Japan to ensure its diversified crude oil procurement, Trade Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said on Sunday after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree establishing a new operator for the project in Russia's Far East.

· NATO must do more to protect itself against Russia and Putin, German DefenSe Minister Christine Lambrecht said, because we "cannot know how far Putin's delusions of grandeur can go."

· To reverse the economic shock caused by the war, Ukraine's government is pinning its hopes on the entrepreneurial resolve of small businesses, along with the return of millions of refugees - and large-scale international financial aid.

IN DETAIL

Damage to Crimea bridge to be checked by Russian divers

Russian divers were to examine on Sunday the damage from a powerful blast on a road-and-rail bridge to Crimea that is a key supply route for forces battling in southern Ukraine.

Saturday's explosion on the bridge over the Kerch Strait prompted gleeful messages from Ukrainian officials but no claim of responsibility. Russia did not immediately assign blame.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said the divers would start work in the morning, with a more detailed survey above the waterline expected to be complete by day's end, domestic news agencies reported.

"The situation is manageable - it's unpleasant, but not fatal," Crimea's Russian governor, Sergei Aksyonov, told reporters. "Of course, emotions have been triggered and there is a healthy desire to seek revenge."

The peninsula had a month's worth of fuel and more than two months' worth of food, he said. Russia's defence ministry said its forces in southern Ukraine could be "fully supplied" through existing land and sea routes.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the 12-mile bridge linking the region to its transport network was opened with great fanfare four years later by Putin.

Kyiv demands that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula, as well as Ukrainian territory they have taken since Putin launched the attack in February.

It was not yet clear if Saturday's blast was a deliberate attack, but the damage to such a high-profile structure came amid battlefield defeats for Russia, and could further cloud Kremlin reassurances that the conflict is going to plan.

Elsewhere, at least 12 people were killed as a result of shelling in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Sunday, and 49 people were hospitalized, including six children, Ukrainian officials said.

A nine-storey building was partially destroyed overnight, five other residential buildings were leveled and many more damaged in 12 Russian missile attacks, said Oleksandr Starukh, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Zaporizhzhia city, about 30 miles from a Russian-held nuclear power plant that is Europe's largest, has been under frequent shelling in recent weeks.