Ukraine forces use U.S. rocket system to knock out bridge, disrupt Russian supply route

July 27 (UPI) -- Officials said that Ukrainian forces have used a U.S.-supplied rocket system to target a key bridge and disrupt a major route that Russia uses to send military supplies through the southern part of the country.

The officials said the attack targeted the Antonivskiy Bridge, which runs over the Dnieper River near Kherson in far southern Ukraine, close to the Black Sea.

A Russian-appointed official in the area, Kirill Stremousov, confirmed the attack on the bridge. He said the bridge is still intact, but is sufficiently damaged so that vehicles cannot cross.

The Russian official also said that Ukrainian forces used U.S.-supplied HIMARS precision rocket launchers to hit the bridge. The same bridge was shelled by Ukrainian forces last week.

Kyiv targeted the bridge to loosen Russia's grip on Kherson -- where Moscow has been in control for most of the war -- and other locations in the region.

"There were hits [after the attack of the Ukrainian troops] on the Antonivskiy Bridge," Stremousov said, according to The Guardian. "We blocked traffic. We will repair it."

Ukrainian national security adviser Oleksiy Danilov on Wednesday tweeted that the nation is "very grateful" for the increased deliveries of Western military aid to the country over the past month.

"The destruction of the [Antonivskiy] bridge shows how delicately modern military equipment works -- the enemy trembles and partners are delighted at how quickly and efficiently our military has mastered it," he said.

Russian forces have been attacking Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, since the war began in February. Moscow, however, has been unable to wrest it entirely from Ukrainian control. File Photo by Sergey Kozlov/EPA-EFE

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a member of the House armed services committee, told CNN that lawmakers were briefed Wednesday that more than 75,000 Russians have been killed or injured in the war on Ukraine.

"You've got incredible amounts of investment in their land forces, over 80%, of their land forces are bogged down, and they're tired," Slotkin said. "But they're still the Russian military."

Slotkin, who recently visited Ukraine, said the briefing focused on efforts to support Ukrainians over a key few weeks as they prepare to mount a counteroffensive in the south.

"The sort of main conversation in the briefing was, you know, what more we can and should be doing for the Ukrainians, literally in the next three to six weeks, very urgently," she said. "Ukrainians want to go to the south and do operations in the south. And we want them to be as successful as possible."

On Wednesday, Russian forces attacked civilian infrastructures to the north in Kharkiv and officials said a private Moscow-aligned military firm successfully advanced on a Ukrainian power plant in the Donbas.

Britain's Defense Ministry, which has been closely monitoring the fighting since it began in February, said the private military company working for the Kremlin, Wagner, made tactical advances around the Vuhlehirska power plant and the nearby village of Novoluhanske in the Donetsk region.

The Donetsk and Luhansk regions make up the Donbas, which for years has been home to a number of pro-Russia separatists.

Farther north, Russian forces have kept up attacks on civilian infrastructure in Kharkiv, according to regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.

"The Russians deliberately target civilian infrastructure objects hospitals, schools, movie theaters," Syniehubov said according to The Guardian. "Everything is being fired at, even queues for humanitarian aid."

In other Russian attacks in the Donetsk region, one person was killed when missiles hit a two-story hotel in Bakhmut -- and structural damage occurred when several missiles hit in Toretsk. Ukrainian and Western officials say that Moscow has made only incremental progress in advancing west through the Donetsk region over the past few weeks.