Ukraine says it has taken out vital bridge in Kherson region

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Ukraine says it has taken out vital bridge in Kherson region – leaving thousands of Russian troops virtually cut off from their supplies

  • For weeks, Ukraine’s military has tried to lay groundwork for a counter-offensive
  • Reported that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the bridge at Nova Kakhovka dam
  • It comes after the Antonovsky bridge was badly damaged and put out of action
  • Kherson is the only regional capital to have fallen to Putin’s troops in the war 

Ukraine has taken out a vital bridge in the Kherson region and further crippled Russian supply lines, according to officials. 

For several weeks, Ukraine’s military has tried to lay the groundwork for a counter-offensive to reclaim southern Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson region, which Russia captured in the early days of the war. 

It comes just weeks after the Antonovsky bridge was badly damaged and put out of action by Ukrainian rockets which blew holes in the roadway. 

A local Ukrainian official reported Saturday that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the last working bridge on the dam at Nova Kakhovka over the Dnieper River.

‘The destruction of the road bridge of the Nova Kakhovka dam was ensured, with the result that it was taken out of operation,’ the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South posted to Facebook. His claims could not be immediately verified. 

For several weeks, Ukraine’s military has tried to lay the groundwork for a counter-offensive to reclaim southern Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson region, which Russia captured in the early days of the war

Russian troops patrol an area at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, a run-of-river power plant on the Dnieper River in Kherson region, south Ukraine, in May 

It comes just weeks after the Antonovsky bridge (pictured) was badly damaged and put out of action by Ukrainian rockets which blew holes in the roadway

‘The Russians no longer have any capability to fully turn over their equipment,’ Serhii Khlan, a deputy to the Kherson Regional Council, wrote on Facebook. 

British military intelligence said on Saturday that the two primary road bridges giving access to the pocket of Russian occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast are now probably out of use for the purposes of substantial military resupply.

‘Even if Russia manages to make significant repairs to the bridges, they will remain a key vulnerability,’ the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.

‘Ground resupply for the several thousand Russian troops on the west bank is almost certainly reliant on just two pontoon ferry crossing points,’ the ministry said in an intelligence update.

With their supply chain constrained, the size of any stockpiles Russia has managed to establish on the west bank is likely to be a key factor in the force’s endurance, according to the update.

Kherson is the only regional capital to have fallen to Putin’s troops in the five-month war and is Russia’s only foothold on the western bank of the Dnipro river which flows down the centre of Ukraine.

A local Ukrainian official reported Saturday that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the last working bridge on the dam at Nova Kakhovka over the Dnieper River. Pictured: A Russian soldier patrols an area at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station

A picture taken on July 21 shows a car moving past a crater on Kherson’s Antonovsky bridge across the Dnipro river caused by a Ukrainian rocket strike

Recapturing it would deal a major propaganda blow to Putin’s forces, and spell a possible end to its attempts to push west along the Black Sea to the port of Odesa.

Russia’s generals have previously said that cutting off Ukraine from the Black Sea – denying Zelensky’s government access to its most-lucrative trading routes – is a key aim of their war.

Seizing the city would also provide a major boost for Ukraine, proving that its army is able to attack as well as it defends.

It would likely prompt renewed support from Western backers in terms of money and arms in the hopes that Ukraine would use them to re-capture all of its territory seized by Russia, which Kyiv has identified as its main war aim.

Capturing Kherson would put Crimea – territory Russia annexed in 2014 and which carries huge symbolic importance for Putin’s regime – within striking distance.

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