The Pentagon said that the international coalition and its allies had not taken any action to raise the water level in the Euphrates River in Syria, which resulted in the destruction of the bridge built by the Russian military. This was reported by a spokesman for the US Department of Defense, Adrian Rankin-Galloway, Tass reports.

"Neither the coalition nor its partners deliberately raised the water level and destroyed the bridge," he said. Rankin-Galloway stressed that the US "is still focused" on conducting operations against the organization "Islamic State" banned in Russia.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Pehon called the charges of breaking the bridge against the coalition "unreasonable and false," RIA Novosti reported.

On Friday, February 9, the official newspaper of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Krasnaya Zvezda, reported that the US might have been involved in the destruction of the bridge. The only bridge across the Euphrates was built by the Russian military on September 23, 2017. Its length is 212 m, and the carrying capacity is 60 tonnes.
As the newspaper notes, other bridges across the river were destroyed during the fighting.

The bridge was destroyed on January 7, after that on January 6, the water in the river rose several meters, and the current increased two-fold, the "Red Star" reported. The publication notes that this happened, in spite of the fact that there were no "significant precipitation" in the region.

According to the publication, Syrian experts said that the reason for the rising water level in the river could be the deliberate opening of locks on the dam of the hydro-electric power plant of Tabak, which is located on the territory controlled by opposition forces. As the "Red Star" notes, these formations are under the control of the international coalition. The material assumes that the US "in such a barbarous way" tried to "prevent people's hands" from interfering with government forces to strengthen their positions on the left bank of the Euphrates.

Link: https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5a7e08389a7947e16d3aeab2