According to Russian officials, Ukraine used long-range British missiles to assault a bridge connecting southern Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula.
The two parallel Chonhar bridges were both damaged, although no one was injured, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of occupied Kherson.
He said that British Storm Shadow missiles were deployed in a “ordered by London” attack.
The bridge is the shortest route from Crimea to the southern front line.
It is also a crucial link to the occupied city of Melitopol, which is located on the coastal road from the Russian border to Crimea, which runs through southern Ukraine.
Vladimir Saldo’s photos showed a big hole in one of the two bridges, but he stated repairs would be performed promptly and traffic would take an other route for the time being.
Russia utilizes the route as a land bridge to Crimea, and Melitopol is believed to be one of the targets of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which began earlier this month in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
Russian soldiers seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, and then invaded Ukraine’s southern coastline region in February of this year.
At least three people were murdered in an explosion on another bridge connecting Crimea to Russia in October, which President Vladimir Putin described as a “act of terrorism.”
Ukraine reclaimed the Kherson region north of the Dnipro river last autumn. The river’s Kakhovka dam was demolished this month in a suspected Russian sabotage attempt, making a Ukrainian offensive across the Dnipro much more difficult.
Ukraine’s offensive has made modest progress, with eight settlements recaptured so far.
Overnight, Russian forces continued to attack Ukrainian cities, including a residential neighborhood in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyih Rih and the southern port of Odesa.
On Thursday, President Zelensky told Ukrainians that security services had received information that Russia was preparing a “scenario of a terrorist attack” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor, which was taken during last year’s full-scale invasion.
The plant is Europe’s largest, and Mr Zelensky warned that “radiation knows no state borders.” The Kremlin promptly dismissed his remarks as “another lie.”
Despite the fact that all six reactors at the plant have been shut down, the United Nations’ atomic energy agency cautioned on Wednesday that the safety and security situation there was “extremely fragile.”
Water levels in a conduit used to cool the reactors have dropped since the Kakhovka dam was demolished, according to the UN, and the situation around the plant has grown increasingly tense amid reports of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
