Meanwhile, footage of US actor Sean Penn meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy and loaning him an Oscar was released by the president's office.
Images on the internet on Wednesday showed the span of the Darivka bridge on the main highway east out of the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine completely collapsed into the water of the Inhulets River, a tributary of the Dnipro River that bisects the country.
Reuters was able to verify the location of the images, though not how the bridge had been destroyed or by whom.
Ukrainians who posted the photos speculated it had been blown up by Russian troops in preparation for a retreat, but Oleh Zhdanov, a Ukrainian military analyst, told Reuters it could have been destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs to isolate Russian forces on either side and "cut the fighting unit in half".
Russian news agencies reported the death of Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian occupation administration in Kherson, saying he had been killed in a car crash, though giving no further details of the circumstances.
Stremousov, one of the highest profile occupation figures, had hinted in recent days that Moscow might pull its forces out of the Russian-controlled pocket on the west bank of the Dnipro, the most closely watched sector of the front line.
Russia has ordered the evacuation of civilians from the area - Ukraine calls the measures a forced deportation - in anticipation of a major battle, while also hinting that it could pull back to more easily defended lines across the Dnipro. Kyiv says it does not expect the Russians to leave without a fight.
Russia's military said it had repelled a Ukrainian advance at Snihurivka on the frontline 50 km north of Darivka along the Inhulets. The Russian-installed mayor there was cited by Russia's RIA news agency as saying residents had seen tanks and that fierce fighting was going on.
"They got into contact during the day and said there were tanks moving around and, according to (residents') information, heavy fighting on the edge of the town," said the mayor, Yuri Barabashov. "People saw this equipment moving through the streets in the town centre."
Vitaly Kim, the Ukrainian governor of Mykolaiv region, which borders Kherson, suggested that Ukrainian forces had pushed the Russians out of the area.
"Russian troops are complaining that they have already been thrown out of there," Kim said in a statement on his Telegram channel.
Also on Wednesday, Zelenskiy's office released video footage of him once again meeting with actor Sean Penn, who is making a documentary about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and being loaned one of his two Oscars.
Penn, who has been involved in numerous international humanitarian and anti-war efforts over the years, told Zelenskiy that every time he leaves Ukraine "I feel like a traitor."
"But if I know this is here with you then I will feel better and stronger for the fights," Penn said as he pulled the statuette from a black bag and placed it on a table in front of Zelenskiy. "When you win, bring it back to Malibu. Because I feel much better knowing there is a piece of me here."
The president tweeted that the Oscar was "a symbol of faith in the victory of our country."
with AP
