Strategic Bridge Collapses as Russia Announces Kherson Withdrawal Complete

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday announced its withdrawal from the banks of the Dnipro River in Ukraine’s Kherson region was completed, denying reports of a hasty retreat under fire that left equipment and wounded troops behind.

Ukraine said its forces surged into the abandoned area, liberating a dozen towns and killing hundreds of Russian troops. The strategic Antonivskiy bridge collapsed for unclear reasons, potentially cutting off Russia’s only route to re-invade Kherson city.

“Russian units have taken the prepared defensive lines and positions. No loss of personnel, weapons, vehicles, or materiel of the Russian forces was allowed. All civilians who wished to leave the right bank of Kherson Region were provided with assistance,” the Russian Defense Ministry stated.

The statement claimed Ukrainian forces “tried to disrupt the movement of civilians across the river with artillery fire, but failed to do so.” The Russian military said it intercepted Ukrainian rockets and drove their troops back with artillery and airstrikes.

Russian military spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said on Friday his country’s forces were able to destroy “three US-made M777 howitzers, two infantry fighting vehicles and three Ukrainian pickups” using Russian-made ZALA Lancet “kamikaze drones,” essentially floating bombs that loiter over a battlefield, waiting for targets to present themselves.

“In addition, over 20 Ukrainian service people, two tanks, two self-propelled artillery mounts and three armored combat vehicles hit mines,” Konashenkov said.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the “difficult” decision to fall back from Kherson, which supposedly voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in a referendum last month, to minimize “unnecessary” military and civilian casualties. 

Not only the Ukrainians, but governments around the world, denounced this referendum as a sham. The United States declared it would never “recognize any of the Kremlin’s claims to sovereignty over parts of Ukraine that it has seized by force and now purports to incorporate into Russia.”

Reuters noted on Friday that if the Russian Defense Ministry’s claims about the withdrawal are reasonably accurate, it was able to move some 30,000 troops across the Dnipro with “lightning” speed, completing the move several days faster than either U.S. or Ukrainian analysts anticipated.

“Abandoning an occupied Ukrainian city that was founded by Empress Catherine the Great in the 18th century amounts to a humiliating defeat for Russia after years of touting its post-Soviet military clout,” Reuters assessed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov flatly replied “no” when asked at a press conference on Friday if Vladimir Putin views the withdrawal from Kherson, so soon after he triumphantly announced it had become Russian territory, as a humiliating defeat.

The Ukrainian government challenged almost every detail of the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement, insisting the Russian retreat was considerably less orderly than the Russian Defense Ministry advertised.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed its troops “eliminated more than 700 invaders on Thursday,” along with several dozen Russian tanks, armored fighting vehicles, trucks, and artillery systems.

The General Staff said Ukrainian troops “liberated 12 settlements” in Kherson while repelling Russian counterattacks. The statement repeated Ukraine’s allegations that Russian forces deliberately targeted civilian areas, in Kherson and across Ukraine.

The General Staff further accused Russian troops of pillaging Kherson as they departed, and said they were not escorting civilians to safety, but rather kidnapping Kherson residents:

Russian invaders continue looting across Ukrainian settlements they are retreating from. In the Kherson region, the enemy makes attempts to damage power transmission lines, transport and critical infrastructure as much as possible.

Additionally, Russian troops are forcibly relocating residents within the temporarily occupied areas of the Kherson region. In the village of Zelenivka, the enemy is preventing any movement of local residents and setting up defense frontiers. In Tiahynka and Kozatske, Russian invaders planted mines on roads and infrastructure elements. Civilians were reported blown up.

The Antonivskiy bridge, which provided the only convenient method of crossing the Dnipro into Russian-held territory from the city of Kherson, collapsed on Friday. Both Russian and Ukrainian television displayed the bridge with several major sections missing from its span.

It was not immediately clear which side destroyed the bridge, or if it collapsed on Friday as a consequence of previous attacks. Forbes cited Russian military blogs and channels on the Telegram messaging platform that claimed Russian forces destroyed the bridge to prevent Ukrainian troops from crossing the Dnipro to continue attacking them.

Ukrainian media cited a Russian military correspondent who also said the bridge was blown up by departing Russian forces, along with an improvised bridge of barges they had previously constructed nearby.

The Ukrainians attempted to destroy the Antonivskiy Bridge in July, when Russian forces were in control of Kherson and using the bridge to resupply.