Outnumbered Ukrainian defenders continue to hold the line in the east against Russian forces who only make “minimal gains,” British military intelligence said on July 20, amid reports that Kyiv took out a key bridge over the Dnipro river using modern Western artillery.
The strike against the strategic Antonivskyi Bridge over in the Russia-controlled Kherson region of southern Ukraine, reported by Russia-installed regional authorities, was the second in as many days.
Kirill Stremousov, the Moscow-appointed deputy head of the military-civilian administration of the region, told TASS on July 20 that about nine missiles fired from U.S.-made HIMARS systems hit the bridge.
“The bridge is very badly damaged. It is repairable but will require time. We will probably have to halt traffic,” Stremousov said, adding that there were no casualties.
The information could not be independently confirmed.
The 1.4-kilometer bridge is the main one across the Dnieper and if it’s rendered unusable it would be hard for the Russian military to keep supplying its forces in the region.
British intelligence said in its daily bulletin that the bridge remains “a key vulnerability” for Moscow’s forces.
The bulletin said that control of Dnipro crossings is likely to become a key factor in the outcome of fighting in the Russian-controlled areas west of the Dnipro, which include the key city of Kherson, which is “politically and symbolically important for Russia.”
The latest Western assessment came as the Ukrainian military reported widespread shelling and attacks in various areas of the country that caused casualties among civilians far from the front line.
At least one person was killed in a Russian missile strike targeting the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, which is becoming one of the main focuses of Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Russian missiles earlier struck the port city of Odesa and the eastern city of Toretsk, regional officials said.
Kyiv has accused Russian forces of having intensified long-distance strikes on targets far from the front, killing large numbers of civilians. Moscow says it is hitting military targets.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who has said Ukraine is now capable of inflicting “significant losses” on the Russian invaders thanks to an influx of modern Western weapons, told Ukrainians in his regular video address late on July 19 that Kyiv is establishing a parliamentary commission to regulate the use of the weapons received from the West.
Zelenskiy appeared to be responding to news reports that some Western officials were concerned Western weaponry might end up being sold on the black market or smuggled out of the country.
Some U.S. lawmakers in Washington have criticized the Pentagon for not adequately monitoring U.S-supplied weaponry to Ukraine.
‘I want to emphasize: There is no ground for any claims to our state in this regard,” he said.
“But to eliminate all fabrications being made by Russian propagandists and those who help them in Ukraine or elsewhere, this additional parliamentary apparatus will be established,” he said.
Military analysts agree that Western weapons systems such as the U.S.-made HIMARS, which are more accurate and have a longer range than other artillery, could be a game changer for Kyiv in its attempt to launch a counteroffensive in the south of the country.
A meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is due to take place on July 20. At the group’s last meeting in May, a total of 47 countries took part and 20 of them announced security assistance packages for Ukraine.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has said that he had a telephone call with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss the framework of the upcoming meeting.
The Contact Group meeting comes as the White House says Russia is laying the groundwork for the annexation of more Ukrainian territory and is installing illegitimate proxy leaders in areas of the country under its control.
John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council (NSC), told a White House news briefing on July 19 that the Russians plan to organize “sham referenda” in the areas it has seized, possibly as early as September, and are preparing to establish the ruble as the default currency and force residents to apply for citizenship.
The areas targeted for annexation include Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, and all of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The NSC spokesman said he was “exposing” the Russian plans “so the world knows that any purported annexation is premeditated, illegal, and illegitimate.”
“Annexation by force will be a gross violation of the UN Charter and we will not allow it to go unchallenged or unpunished,” Kirby said.
Kirby said the United States would respond to Russia’s actions “swiftly and severely and in lockstep with our allies and partners.” The response will include be sanctions on Russian-installed “puppets and proxies,” he said.
Kirby also said that in the next few days the United States will announce a new weapons package for Ukraine. The aid is expected to include more HIMARS systems.
