KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces on Wednesday damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow is trying to consolidate its territorial gains.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia has expanded its “special military operation” from eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces to include the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and other captured territories.
Lavrov’s remarks and the Ukrainian missile attack on the strategically important Kherson region bridge indicated the nearly five-month war would broaden again after unfolding mostly in eastern Ukraine since April.
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Russia’s top diplomat noted that when Russia and Ukraine in March discussed a possible deal to end the fighting, “our readiness to accept the Ukrainian proposal was based on the geography of March 2022.”
“Now it’s a different geography,” Lavrov said, repeating Moscow’s earlier claims that the United States and Britain were encouraging Ukraine to expand the hostilities.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and quickly seized some territory, but withdrew from the capital region and the north at the end of March to concentrate on seizing Donetsk and Luhansk, where pro-Moscow separatists have controlled much of the territory since 2014.
As Russian forces gained control of more cities in the two eastern provinces, which together make up Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, Ukrainian officials mentioned plans for a counter-offensive to retake Russian-occupied areas in the south.
The Ukrainian strike on the Dnipro River bridge appeared to be intended to loosen Russia’s grip on the southern Kherson region. Wednesday’s attack on the bridge was the second in as many days.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed temporary regional administration, said the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi Bridge, using U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers.
The 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) bridge is the main river crossing in the Kherson region. Knocking it out would make it hard for the Russian military to keep supplying its forces in the region, the target of repeated Ukrainian attacks.
Stremousov said that because of the bridge damage, pontoon crossings would be constructed over the river, which is also known as the Dnieper.
The head of the Moscow-appointed Kherson administration, Vladimir Saldo, said in a video message that passenger vehicles could continue driving across the bridge but truck traffic was halted. He said trucks could cross the river using a dam 80 kilometers (50 miles) away.