CNN reports Russian hit on vital bridge to Bakhmut as Wagner leader claims city is 'practically surrounded'

Russian troops blew up a key bridge connecting Donetsk Oblast's city of Bakhmut with the village of Khromove overnight, CNN reported on March 3, citing an unnamed official from the region's police and a soldier in Bakhmut.

The reportedly blown-up bridge is a vital artery for evacuating civilians and transporting supplies such as ammunition, according to CNN. It is also the last major supply route from Bakhmut to Chasiv Yar.

The news was also confirmed to CNN by a special forces soldier fighting in Bakhmut, who said the bridge had been hit with a Russian Iskander missile.

A photo appeared on social media allegedly showing the destruction, but it's impossible to verify where and when it was taken.

Police in the city of Konstantinyvka told CNN that local authorities would try to repair the bridge in the nearest future while Bakhmut could still be reached via dirt tracks and fields.

On the same day, the press service of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Russian state-backed mercenary Wagner Group fighting against Ukraine, published his video address to President Volodymyr Zelensky on Telegram.

This video shows Prigozhin in military uniform standing on a building's roof next to alleged Ukrainian POWs with sounds of shelling in the background.

He said that Bakhmut was "practically surrounded" by Wagner forces and called on Zelensky to withdraw Ukrainian troops from the city.

The Ukrainian military's National Resistance Center called Prigozhin's address "a disinformation campaign designed to create panic among the population."

The center added that the video had been recorded in the nearby village of Paraskoviivka, the capture of which Russia reported in late February.

Ukraine continues to hold Bakhmut despite the seven-month-long Russian attempt to capture the city as Moscow tries to increase its grip over the entirety of the eastern Donetsk Oblast, around half of which it currently occupies.

On March 2, Eastern Operational Command spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty said that Ukraine's Armed Forces have the option to withdraw from Bakhmut, but such a decision will only be made if it is "absolutely necessary."

With the loss of Soledar, Ukrainian positions in Bakhmut jeopardized

The Kyiv Independent