Ukraine destroys key Russian bridge as it presses on with offensive

KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine has destroyed a critical bridge and appears to have targeted at least one more in Russia’s western Kursk region as it tries to sever Russian supply lines and consolidate its territorial gains, a dozen days into its startling cross-border offensive.

Analysts say the destruction of the bridge – which spanned the Seym River near the town of Glushkovo, about 10 miles northwest of the battle zone in Kursk – could hamper Russia’s response to the Ukrainian attack by making it harder to move troops and materiel, although there are alternative routes.

Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, the commander of Ukraine’s air force, posted a video on social media late Friday showing the bridge’s destruction. The video captured a large explosion tearing the bridge in two near a river embankment.

“Ukrainian pilots are conducting precision strikes on enemy strongholds, equipment concentrations, as well as on enemy logistics centers and supply routes,” Oleshchuk said.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged the destruction of the bridge, which it said had disrupted the evacuation of civilians. It also said that volunteers assisting evacuees had been killed in the attack. Those claims could not be independently verified.

Analysts say the destruction of the Glushkovo bridge points to a commitment by Ukraine to a sustained fight in western Russia. By trying to disrupt Moscow’s logistical lines, they say, Ukraine may be preparing for a prolonged campaign to strengthen and possibly expand its positions in the area.

Ukraine’s incursion into Russia began early last week with a surprise cross-border assault that many believed would be short-lived. But after Ukrainian forces swiftly pushed through Russian defenses and captured several villages, Kyiv poured more forces into the operation, transforming it into a full-scale offensive and effectively opening a new front in western Russia.

The Ukrainian army said Thursday that it now controlled more than 80 Russian settlements in the Kursk region, including Sudzha, a town of 6,000. The claims could not be independently verified, although analysts say that Sudzha is highly likely to be under full Ukrainian control.

Yet as Ukraine’s offensive presses on, military experts say that greater challenges lie ahead. Seizing more land will become harder as Russian reinforcements arrive and Ukraine’s supply lines are stretched, and holding on to captured territory could expose fixed Ukrainian positions to potentially devastating Russian airstrikes.

Thibault Fouillet, the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, a French research center, said that Ukraine would need to bring in air defense and artillery weapons, organize logistical lines and replace soldiers at the new front.

“It’s not easy to open a new front and hold it,” he said.

Ukraine’s advance in the Kursk region has slowed in recent days, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite images. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Friday that Ukraine continued to make marginal advances and that its forces were now inside Borki, a village about 8 miles to the southeast of Sudzha.

Military analysts and U.S. officials said the Russian command had so far brought in reinforcements mainly from within Russia so as not to deplete its units on the Ukrainian battlefield, in what they described as a disorganized effort that has slowed Russia’s response.

“Russia is still pulling together its reaction,” Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, NATO’s top military commander, said during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday. He described the Russian response as having been “fairly slow and scattered” as authorities sorted out which military and security forces should take the lead.

Fouillet said Russia’s disjointed response had prompted Ukraine to strengthen and expand its positions, after an initial attack involving about 1,000 troops. A German army general estimated this past week that Ukraine had since committed up to 6,000 troops to the operation and up to 4,000 more in support roles across the border in Ukraine.

“It started as a raid,” Fouillet said of Kyiv’s initial attack. “But the objectives have changed as success came.”

The Ukrainians have also taken steps to disrupt the arrival of Russian reinforcements, striking a column of military vehicles carrying troops a week ago and, on Friday, destroying the Glushkovo bridge.

Moscow said late Friday that Ukraine had destroyed the bridge using Western rockets, possibly American HIMARS, a ground-launched rocket system. The claim could not be independently confirmed, and Ukraine instead suggested that it had used fighter jets.

Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst for the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which analyzes footage from the battlefield, said Ukraine had also damaged other bridges over the Seym River, although their location was unclear. “If the three bridges over Seym get completely destroyed, it could cause the Russians significant logistical issues,” he wrote on social media.

Beyond the disruption to Moscow’s military operation, the destruction of the Glushkovo bridge could also hamper the evacuation of Russian civilians by cutting off villages from roads out of the combat zone.

Another aim in destroying the bridge, which is about 6 miles from the Ukrainian border, could be to ease Ukrainian forces’ path into nearby territory, analysts say. In recent days, Ukrainian troops have pushed both north and south, with the apparent goal of extending their control not deeper into Russia, but rather along the Ukrainian border.

Analysts say the Russian border area was relatively lightly fortified and sparsely defended, whereas pushing west into Russia would mean passing through more urban centers, which can be difficult to seize, and encountering new lines of trenches and anti-tank ditches that Moscow has begun to dig about 30 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Kastehelmi said attacking the town of Glushkovo “could be a logical next step, if Ukraine wants to continue the offensive in new directions” and grab more land relatively easily.

Whether Russia would let that happen remains to be seen. Kastehelmi said that Russian forces had already built at least one additional temporary bridge over the Seym.

Fouillet said, “The coming week will be decisive: We’re going to assess the strength of the Russian counterattack and its effect on the Ukrainians.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.