New satellite images show a major Kherson bridge that was blown apart as Russian forces retreated from one of their biggest war wins

• An explosion early Friday morning seriously damaged the key Antonivsky Bridge in Kherson, Ukraine.
• The explosion came as Russian forces retreated from the strategically important city.

An early-morning explosion rendered inoperable last major bridge out of Kherson, the Antonivsky Bridge. New satellite images show large gaps in the structure, which was being used by Russian forces fleeing from the strategically important city in eastern Ukraine.

"It was very foggy in the morning and we couldn't see much, but people from Antonivka say that the roofs of the houses were taken away by the explosion wave," one local resident told The New York Times.

Neither side has claimed responsibility for the blast, but Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, wrote on Twitter that the bridge "was destroyed by Russian forces as they retreated." Prior to the Russian retreat from Kherson, Ukrainian officials accused Russia of destroying various bridges, the suspected aim being to slow the Ukrainian advance.

Photos published Friday afternoon by Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite imagery company, show wide spans of the Antonivsky Bridge were destroyed. The bridge had served both car and rail traffic across the Dnipro River.

Oleksiy Arestoych, a Ukrainian government spokesperson, said on Facebook that the bridge was "no longer there, according to preliminary data."

Other satellite images published Friday by Maxar show damage that occurred earlier in the week to the the Darivka Bridge, several hours north of the city of Kherson, as well as to the Nova Kakhovka dam just upstream of the provincial capital that has been under Russian occupation for nearly nine months.

In a statement on Friday, Russia's Ministry of Defense said its forces had fully evacuated from Kherson in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive to retake the city, the first that Russian troops seized after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his Feb. 24 invasion. Kherson is also the only regional capital that Russian forces managed to capture.

A few hours after the Russian announcement, videos began to surface on social media showing Ukrainians celebrating in a town square in Kherson, where the Ukrainian flag was again being flown. The Ukrainian military's defense intelligence unit confirmed that Ukrainian forces had entered the city and said that "Kherson is returning under the control of Ukraine."

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