Ukraine fired again
Russia has to close important bridge to Kherson
07/27/2022, 11:11 am
The recapture of the occupied city of Cherson is a stated goal of Ukraine. Finally, important bridges around the city become the target of attacks with western HIMARS missiles. Ukraine also reports smaller gains in territory.
Days ago, Ukraine announced that it wanted to launch a counteroffensive in the Cherson region. Now the Ukrainian military is reporting further small successes. A bridge that is important for Russia’s supplies also comes under fire again. A targeted approach by the Ukrainians to disrupt the supply lines of the Russian forces is becoming apparent.
According to the Ukrainian military, the small village of Andriyivka in the Kherson region was completely conquered. “Andriyivka has been liberated and finally cleared of the Russian occupying forces,” spokesman for the “South” command center of the Ukrainian troops, Vladyslaw Nazarov, said in a video message on Tuesday evening. According to Nazarov, the Ukrainian forces also captured the neighboring town of Losowe a few days ago. The information cannot be verified independently.
However, the battles are still mainly conducted by means of artillery attacks on supply lines. The military administration deployed by Moscow in the Cherson region reported that the 1.4-kilometer-long Antonivka car bridge over the Dnipro River (Russian: Dnepr) was shelled again. The bridge near the regional capital of Cherson is still intact, said a spokesman for the administration on Wednesday night. He later acknowledged that the bridge was damaged and closed to traffic.
Expert sees targeted action by the Ukrainians
About a week ago, there were reports of attacks on the Antonivka Bridge using HIMARS missiles supplied by the United States to Ukraine. These are said to have a high level of precision. According to former Colonel Ralph Thiele, the fact that the Ukrainians have apparently only damaged the bridges so far, but not destroyed them, “suggests that they are on purpose,” as he said in an interview with ntv. The idea behind this is “to regulate the Russians’ logistical traffic, but to continue to allow it.” The aim could be to strike whenever Russia moves troops across the bridge.
In addition to the Antonivka road bridge, there is another railway bridge over the Dnipro. The bridges are strategically important for Russia because the river carries a lot of water and is therefore difficult to cross. The primary goal of the Ukrainian military is to push the occupying Russian troops back to the line behind the Dnipro. To do this, they are attempting, among other things, to shut down the supply lines with the help of the HIMARS rocket launchers supplied by the USA.
There have also been reports that another bridge near Kherson has already been damaged by Ukrainian attacks. It runs north-east of the city across the Inhulez River, which flows into the Dnipro. The counter-administration deployed by Russia said at the weekend that the Darivka bridge there had been hit by seven HIMARS rockets, but was still intact. However, the US Institute for War Studies (ISW), citing Ukrainian sources, reported that Russian forces had constructed a replacement pontoon bridge to allow traffic to resume across the Inhulez.
Smaller terrain gains for weeks
The Ukrainian army had already made up ground in the southern Ukrainian region of Cherson in the past few weeks. Russian troops had captured the capital of the same name shortly after the invasion began on March 3rd. The region is important to Ukraine’s agriculture and is close to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
While there are signs of progress for Ukraine in the south, the situation in Donbass remains difficult. According to information from the British secret service, the Russian mercenary group Wagner probably recently gained tactical ground there. The British Ministry of Defense announced on Twitter that the mercenaries had advanced in the vicinity of the Wuhlehirska power plant and in the nearby village of Nowoluhanske. It quotes from the latest military intelligence report. After that, some Ukrainian troops in the area are believed to have retreated. The media of the Donetsk separatists fighting on the side of Russia had already reported the capture of Ukraine’s largest coal-fired power plant.