From the New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernice and this is The Daily.

Over the past few days, Russian missiles have slammed into Ukrainian cities

in the most sweeping attack since the start of the war.

Today, I talked to my colleague Michael Schwartz about what prompted the strikes

and what they tell us about Russia's narrowing options.

It's Wednesday, October 12th.

So Mike, we've been seeing all of this news coming out of Ukraine over the past couple of days,

lots of bombings and many, many people dead.

Tell us what happened. When did it all begin?

It all started at about 6 a.m. on Saturday.

You're looking at a vital bridge for Russia connecting mainland Russia to Crimea.

And we're learning this morning that there has been an explosion on that bridge.

It was just before the sun came up and on a bridge called the Crimean Bridge,

linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, this massive fireball erupted.

A truck exploded on the road section of the Crimea bridge from the side of the Taman Peninsula.

This set seven fuel tanks of a train traveling in the direction of Crimea on fire.

As a result, two road sections have partially collapsed.

This huge sparking ball of flames that then ignited a passing fuel train

that began to blow up and burn on a parallel railroad track to the bridge.

He saw several cars getting golfed in this fireball.

Russian officials say at least three people were killed in that blast.

And ultimately a large chunk of this bridge just fell into the sea.

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