It comes after Kiev hit the city’s Antonovsky Bridge with West-supplied Himmers rocket launchers. The strike was the opening salvo in the Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the strategically important city.
Kherson is likely to be the site of the next major battle as the fighting in the Donbas region wanes.
The 1000-meter-long bridge has been used by Russian troops to supply the occupied city.
However, it has been left “completely unusable,” a Western official said after the strike.
As a result, it will be more difficult for Moscow to move heavy armor to Kherson or remove its troops in personnel cars.
The Western official told The Daily Telegraph that the Ukrainian counter-offensive was “gaining momentum” and that bridges would be the main target.
They said: “Kherson’s counter-offensive in Ukraine is now gaining momentum.
“As with so many wars, a central part of the campaign comes down to a race to conquer and destroy bridges.”
Ukraine’s defense ministry warned the “Russian occupiers in Kherson” to “withdraw or be destroyed” in a message on Twitter, clarifying that “the choice is theirs”.
READ MORE: : Zelensky’s men kill up to 200 elite Wagner mercenaries
Images released by the Russian-installed government in Kherson on Wednesday showed potholes in the middle of the road.
The destruction of the bridge over the Dnipro River threatens Russian supplies from the rest of the Kherson region and Crimea, which was controversially annexed by Moscow in 2014 and used as a launching pad for the invasion.
Russian military blogger Voennyi Osvedomite said the attack on the bridge would have a “cumulative effect” leading to a “weakening” of the structure.
He said: “First, the effects of the shelling of the bridge have a cumulative effect, i.e. each successive attack inflicts more damage than the previous one, not only by increasing the number of hits, but also by increasing the weakening of the bridge. the canvas structure.
“Secondly, alternatives in the form of pontoons and ferries are many times more vulnerable to enemy fire than a large bridge. Just one MLRS missile will be enough to take them out.”