The Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi Bridge across the Dnieper River late Tuesday, said the deputy head of the Moscow-appointed command for the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov. He said the bridge was still standing, but its deck was riddled with holes, preventing vehicles from crossing. The mile-long bridge was badly damaged in Ukrainian shelling last week, when it took several hits. It was closed to trucks but had remained open to passenger vehicles until the strike. Ukrainian forces used US-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to strike the bridge, Mr Stremousov said. The bridge is the main crossing of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region. The only other option is a dam at the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant, which also came under fire from Ukraine last week but remained open to traffic. Knocking out the crossings would make it difficult for the Russian military to continue resupplying its forces in the region amid repeated Ukrainian attacks. Early in the war, Russian troops quickly seized the Kherson region just north of the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014. They faced Ukrainian counterattacks but largely held their ground. The Ukrainian attacks on the Kherson bridge come as the bulk of Russian forces are stuck in fighting in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of the Donbass, where they have made slow gains in the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance. Supplies of American weapons such as HIMARS helped slow the Russian advance. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Russian military casualties have risen to nearly 40,000, adding that tens of thousands more have been wounded and maimed. His claim could not be independently verified. The Russian military last reported its casualties in March, when it said 1,351 soldiers were killed in action and 3,825 wounded.
