Russian authorities suspended traffic over a strategically important bridge in the Kherson region on Wednesday after Ukraine used US-supplied high-precision rockets to attack a crucial supply route.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russia-appointed local administration in the southern city of Kherson, told Russian state newswires that Ukraine had launched rocket strikes on the Antonivsky bridge late on Tuesday, making transport impossible.
The 1.4km bridge across the Dnipro river links the city, one of the largest under occupation since Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine in February, to the rest of Russian-held territory.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote in a tweet: “Occupiers should learn how to swim across the Dnipro River. Or should leave Kherson while it is still possible. There may not be a third warning.”
Ukraine is attempting to retake the south in a counterattack while halting Russia’s advance in the Donbas, where it has captured all of the Luhansk region and much of neighbouring Donetsk.
Kyiv says US-supplied Himars systems, which can fire at greater distances and with higher accuracy than the Soviet-made weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal, are key to the effort.
Ukraine’s southern military command described the attack on the Antonivsky bridge as a precision strike aimed at demoralising Russia’s troops.
“We are not destroying the infrastructure, we are destroying the enemy’s plans,” it said.
Video posted on social media showed the bridge largely structurally intact but riddled with potholes, which Stremousov said made road transport impossible. He promised the bridge would be repaired “in a very short time”.
The bridge had been closed to trucks since a Ukrainian strike last week, but had allowed cars to cross.
The US said on Monday it would give Ukraine an extra four Himars, taking the total number at its disposal to 16.
Since their arrival, Kyiv has used the high-precision systems to great effect by striking high-value targets such as command posts, weapons warehouses and oil depots.
Russia has repeatedly indicated that it planned to annex Kherson and other parts of south-eastern Ukraine under its control in what the US has called “sham referenda”.
Although President Vladimir Putin initially framed Russia’s invasion as a “special operation” to “liberate” Russian speakers in the eastern Donbas border region, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that Russia’s war aims had since expanded.
Russia quickly seized Kherson and most of the neighbouring province of Zaporizhzhia in a two-pronged attack from the Donbas and the Crimean peninsula during the invasion’s early days.
Moscow initially let Ukraine-appointed officials continue to run the region, but then replaced them with separatists such as Stremousov, who has moved to make the rouble the area’s official currency and said he planned to hold a vote on the region joining Russia.
