Chris Lange, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
For the second time in under a week, U.S.-supplied precision rocket launchers were used by Ukrainian forces in a successful counterattack against Russia in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
Ukrainian troops used high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) supplied by the U.S. to take out a key bridge used to bring supplies to Russian forces, according to an Associated Press report. Ukrainian military officials on Sunday said they destroyed dozens of Russian ammunition depots with the HIMARS.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration for the Kherson region, acknowledged that the Antonivskyi Bridge over the Dnieper River was attacked late Tuesday. Stremousov said the bridge was not completely destroyed but that the strike caused enough damage to render it uncrossable.
While cutting off the supply route at the bridge is unlikely to significantly impact Russia’s military operations in the Kherson region, it served as another morale booster for Ukraine’s military as its forces fight to reclaim territory.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said “occupiers should learn how to swim across” the Dnieper or “leave Kherson while it is still possible,” in a tweet, adding, “There may not be a third warning,” he tweeted.
You can call the Antonivsʹkyy bridge a mean of ru-air defense that intercepts all ua-missiles, but you cannot escape the reality – 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.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) July 27, 2022
The loss of the bridge will force Russia to resupply troops in the region via a dam at a hydroelectric plant in Kakhovka. Ukraine targeted the dam with strikes last week, but it remains open.
Elsewhere, Russia has stepped up airstrikes in the south and shelled several villages in Ukraine’s east in what appears to signify an end to the “operational pause” Moscow announced earlier this month after its forces captured the eastern region of Luhansk.
The majority of Russian forces continue fighting in the Donbas region in Ukraine’s east but have made slow progress amid fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s defense minister said preparations to resume grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports are still underway. An agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey to export millions of tons of grain held up in Ukraine as a result of blockades nearly unraveled Sunday when Russia targeted the port city of Odesa with missile strikes.