Russia-Ukraine updates: Russian missiles hit close to nuclear reactors: IAEA director

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he plans to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the coming days, marking the first time the two leaders will speak since the war began.

Blinken said a critical topic of discussion would be securing the freedom of detained Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, revealing that the U.S. has already put forward a plan to accomplish that.

“We put a substantial proposal on the table weeks ago to facilitate their release. Our governments have communicated repeatedly and directly on that proposal, and I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally and I hope move us toward a resolution,” Blinken said.

"I can't and won't get into any of the details of what we've proposed to the Russians over the course of some many weeks now," Blinken said.

Blinken said President Joe Biden played an active role in crafting the proposal for Griner and Whelan.

Blinken also stressed, "My call with Foreign Minister Lavrov will not be a negotiation about Ukraine," adding, "Any negotiation regarding Ukraine is for its government and people to determine."

-ABC News’ Shannon Crawford

Ukrainian forces struck a strategic bridge in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson early Wednesday, according to local officials.

High-precision missile strikes by the Ukrainian military damaged the Antonivskiy bridge, forcing the occupied authorities to close the structure to civilian traffic. The mile-long bridge across the Dnieper River is an essential artery used by Moscow to supply its troops occupying southern Ukraine.

"Strikes were delivered on the bridge, on its road. The bridge is currently closed to the civilian population," Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, told local media on Wednesday.

The bridge's pillars and spans were still intact as of Wednesday morning, according to Stremousov.

"It is simply that the number of holes on the road has increased. The strike on the bridge has affected only the civilian population," he added.

According to Stremousov, Ukrainian forces hit the bridge with High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) supplied by the United States. He said ferry crossings across the Dnieper River will be organized during the bridge's restoration, and that traffic will resume in the near future.

"We have prepared a pontoon bridge. We have a ferry link," he told local media.

Earlier on Wednesday, Ukrainian military officials said the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war has surpassed 40,000, just more than five months after Russia launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine in late February.

-ABC News' Edward Szekeres, Yulia Drozd, Max Uzol and Yuriy Zaliznyak

Ukrainian officials said they aim to export more than 3 million tons of agricultural products every month from three Odesa ports.

In peacetime, about 5 million tons of grain were exported from ​​the three ports every month, Alla Stoyanova, director of the department of agrarian policy of the Odesa RMA, told Ukrainian national broadcaster Suspilne.

Two ports will be operational this week and exports from the third port will start next week, Stoyanova said.

Russia and Ukraine last week signed agreements to restart grain exports from Ukraine. In a joint press conference with the President of Guatemala on Monday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine will do everything necessary to ensure the export of agricultural products from Black Sea ports.

-ABC News’ Max Uzol

Russian forces launched a series of missile strikes on Sunday that destroyed two schools in the Donetsk region of Ukraine and damaged a kindergarten in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, according to local officials.

No one was reported injured when missiles hit schools in Kostyantynivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, according to Donetsk region Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. Officials said that a kindergarten in Novo Dmytrivka in the Kharkiv region was also damaged.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said Russian forces also launched three Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea targeting the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine. All three missiles were shot down before reaching targets, the defense ministry said.

Several powerful explosions were heard in Mykolaiv near the Black Sea in southern Ukraine and in Melitopol in southeastern Ukraine Saturday night. More explosions were heard in Mykolaiv Sunday morning, officials said.

The mayor of Melitopol posted photos on Telegram showing damage to railroad tracks in his city.

Oleksandr Sienkevych, the mayor of Mykolaiv, said in a statement that officials were collecting information on the explosions and conducting a damage assessment. According to the preliminary data, Sienkevych said there were no casualties.

-ABC News Christine Theodorou