Because the Russian forces retreated because of a sustained Ukrainian counteroffensive within the Kharkiv area, 3 bridges essential to proceeding the Ukrainian advance have been blown up, satellite tv for pc photographs from BlackSky and the Eu House Company display.
The photographs from Black Sky, taken on Might 12, display collapsed sections of the bridges crossing the Siverskyi Donets River close to the villages of Rubizhne and Staryi Saltiv, which might be about 10 miles south of the Russian border.
The village of Rubizhne is close to Staryi Saltiv, even supposing it stocks the similar identify with the town additional south in Luhansk.
The villages have been lately liberated by means of Ukrainian forces.
Some other satellite tv for pc symbol, taken on Might 8, by means of the Eu House Company presentations the bridge around the Pecheneg hydroelectric energy station — the closest bridge to the south — has additionally been blown up.
There are simplest two smaller bridges to the north, within the lately Russian-occupied villages of Ohirtseve and Buhrukuvatka, which go the river. Their present standing is unknown, as clouds have obscured any contemporary satellite tv for pc imaging.
Why the bridges are necessary: If the ones bridges are compromised, the momentum of the Ukrainian advance shall be considerably hampered.
It is not simply momentum that is necessary for the Ukrainian forces. Main Russian provide traces, which might be essential to the Russian army advance close to the town of Izium and into the Luhansk area, are simply east of the Siverskyi Donets River within the Kharkiv area.
Whilst it is not totally transparent when the bridges have been blown, or who’s answerable for doing so, it is not going the Ukrainians are answerable for their destruction. The bridges are simply too essential to their counteroffensive, and to focused on the provision traces.