Ukrainian soldier blew himself up on bridge to block advancement of Russian tanks

Agencies | Kyiv

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A Ukrainian soldier blew himself up in order to destroy a bridge and prevent Russian forces from storming in from Crimea, various media houses reported. The braveheart, Vitaliy Skakun Volodymyrovych, died while attempting to fend off a row of Russian tanks at the Henichesk bridge, in the Kherson region.

According to a post on the General Staff’s Facebook page, the battalion decided the only way to stop them was to blow up the bridge. Skakun had no time to escape. He told his comrades he was going to detonate, and second, later they heard an explosion. Ukraine’s armed forces confirmed the death of the trooper near the bridge – which connects Russian-occupied Crimea with mainland Ukraine – after he had carried out the dangerous task of mining it with explosives.

An Armed Forces official said Mr Volodymyrovych had decided to blow up the bridge after volunteering to place the explosives on it. “The bridge was mined, but he didn’t manage to get away from there,” they explained.

His efforts and that of the Ukrainian armed forces are significantly slowing down the Russians – one senior defense official cited by CNN said Russian troops are meeting ‘more resistance’ than they anticipated. ‘I can’t give you an exact geographic location of where they are, but they are not moving on Kyiv as fast as they anticipated they would be able to. [They are] meeting more resistance than they expected,’ they added.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian citizens are reportedly handed guns and told to make Molotov cocktails in an attempt to push back against Putin’s army.

Moscow troops have captured the strategic Hostomel airport, near the capital, but have yet to take control of Kyiv – despite air strikes over the city in the early hours of this morning.

At least 137 Ukrainians are believed to have been killed across the country at the hands of Putin’s forces after the assault began in the early hours of Thursday.

And Russian forces have lost about 2,800 servicemen and 80 tanks during their assault on Ukraine, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said.