After the destruction of a strategically important bridge near Cherson, the Russian occupiers have to rethink: According to British information, they are now using pontoon bridges and a ferry system. They seem to be under increasing pressure.
According to British information, Russian forces near the southern Ukrainian city of Cherson are trying to secure their supplies with pontoon bridges and a ferry system. This is to compensate for the fact that nearby and strategically important bridges have been impassable since Ukrainian rocket attacks, the Ministry of Defense in London said, citing intelligence information. Because of the bridge damage, the Russian troops in Cherson were threatened with being cut off from supplies, it had been said from London the day before.
According to British assessments, the authorities deployed by Russia in the occupied territories in southern Ukraine are under increasing pressure to consolidate control over the region. Their task is to prepare referendums on accession to Russia in the course of the year, it said. The administrators, who are loyal to Russia, would probably force the population to disclose personal data in order to create electoral rolls.
Regarding the situation in eastern Ukraine, the British ministry said that Ukrainian troops had apparently been successful in fending off smaller advances by Russian forces along the front near the city of Donetsk.
In a statement, the Ukrainian military also referred to the bridge damage in the Kherson region. Accordingly, the train service to Kherson across the Dnipro River is interrupted. As a result, the Russian armed forces would be further isolated from supplies to occupied Crimea and the east, reports the "Ukrainian Military Command South. The army also destroyed two Russian ammunition depots in the Cherson region, a howitzer, two tank artillery, 17 armored and military vehicles of the Russian Troops were hit and the army is said to have killed 105 Russian soldiers.
In the past few weeks, Ukraine had already heavily damaged three bridges across the Dnipro with western weapons in order to cut off supplies to Russian troops in the city of Kherson on the western bank of the river.
