Craters on Kherson’s Antonovsky bridge caused by a Ukrainian rocket strike
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Two road bridges providing vital access to a pocket of Russian-occupied territory have been rendered unusable after being hit by Ukrainian missile strikes, British military intelligence has said.
The bridges on the occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast will remain vulnerable even with significant repairs, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
Due to this damage to Russia’s supply line, the MoD claimed Russian forces in the area will be restricted to just two pantoon bridges.
In its latest intelligence update, the MoD wrote: “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.
"On 10 August 2022, Ukrainian precision strikes likely rendered the road crossing of the Dnipro River at Nova Kakhovka unusable for heavy military vehicles.
"In recent days, Russia has only succeeded in making superficial repairs to the damaged Antonivsky road bridge which likely remains structurally undermined”.
It comes after a Russian rocket attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed three people and wounded 13 others on Friday night, according to the mayor. Kramatorsk is the headquarters for Ukrainian forces in the country’s war-torn east.
The attack came less than a day after 11 other rockets were fired at the city, one of the two main Ukrainian-held ones in Donetsk province, the focus of an ongoing Russian offensive to capture eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 13 August 2022
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Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/icdVutdq7e
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The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday its forces had taken control of Pisky, a village on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, the provincial capital that pro-Moscow separatists have claimed since 2014.
Russian troops and the Kremlin-backed rebels are seeking to seize Ukrainian-held areas north and west of the city of Donetsk to expand the separatists’ self-proclaimed republic.
But the Ukrainian military said on Saturday that its forces had prevented an overnight advance toward the smaller cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov also claimed that Russian strikes near Kramatorsk, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Donetsk city, destroyed a US-supplied multiple rocket launcher and ammunition.
The Ukrainian governor of neighboring Luhansk province, which is part of the fight over the Donbas region and was overrun by Russian forces last month, claimed that Ukrainian troops still held a small area.
Writing on Telegram, Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said the defending troops remained holed up inside an oil refinery on the edge of Lysychansk, a city that Moscow claimed to have captured, and also control areas near a village.
“The enemy is burning the ground at the entrances to the Luhansk region because it cannot overcome (Ukrainian resistance along) these few kilometers,” Haidai said. “It is difficult to count how many thousands of shells this territory of the free Luhansk region has withstood over the past month and a half.”
