World

Russia strikes strategic bridge: Ukraine

By AAP Newswire

May 3, 2022

Governor Maksym Marchenko (left) says a bridge across the Dniester Estuary has been hit by Russia. -EPA

Ukrainian authorities say the Russian military again has struck a strategic bridge in the country's southwest.

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Odessa region Governor Maksym Marchenko said that Russian forces on Monday hit a bridge across the Dniester Estuary west of Odessa where the Dniester River flows into the Black Sea.

The bridge already had been heavily damaged in two previous Russian missile strikes.

The bridge provides the only railway connection and the key highway link to areas west of Odessa.

Its destruction cuts access to shipments of weapons and other cargo from neighbouring Romania.

The attacks on the bridge followed a claim by a senior Russian military officer that Russia aims to take control of the entire south of Ukraine and build a land corridor to the separatist Transnistria region of Moldova, where tensions have recently escalated.

Transnistria broke away after a short civil war in the early 1990s and is unrecognised by most countries.

An estimated 1500 Russian soldiers are stationed there.

Ukrainian and foreign officials have voiced concern that Russia could use the region to open a new front in the war against Ukraine.