The Russian-Appointed Leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov has announced that the 145th Pillar on the Kerch Strait Bridge has Collapsed as a result of a “Terrorist Attack” causing a Total Halt in Car Traffic across the Bridge; he further stated that No Damage was caused to the Train Bridge and that Rail Traffic will begin again soon.
According multiple sources the bridge was under attack and hit by two strikes at 03:20am local time. The lack of anti aircraft fire suggests that it is was a naval USV attack. It is still unclear how severe the damage is but the rumors say that one span of the car bridge is gone. Ferry services have been suspended, too. The light of the bridge is partially turned off (or electricity cut). Traffic on both sides of the bridge is accumulating and the regional occupation commander suggests to enter Crimea using the temporarily occupied land bridge of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Comment: Reports like these are appearing over Twitter and in Telegram channels. There’s enough of them to indicate the road bridge suffered some kind of damage. It could be a structural collapse. This bridge is not solid Soviet construction. It was slapped together quickly and surely with just as much corruption as concrete.
But reports of two strikes doesn’t support a structural collapse. As several posters have noted, air defenses around the bridge were not activated. If it was a missile hit, those missiles would have to be stealthy as all hell. I think it is likely that it was some kind of Ukrainian “suicide drone boat” or USV (unmanned surface vessel). I would think Russia would have some kind of defenses to guard against a waterborne attack on the bridge. Either the Russians were very stupid, very drunk or the the Ukrainians have a newer stealthy USV carrying a seriously powerful warhead. I guess we’ll know more in a day or so.
TTG
Hard to wrap my head around a naval USV doing this. Seems it would have to be very large, wouldn’t it? And how did it avoid detection while transiting around the peninsula? Although the 15 July attack on Sevastopol Harbor by both UAVs and USVs would have served as a distraction to let the Kerch USV or USVs(?) get past undetected.
Too bad that it’s the road bridge and not the rail bridge which reportedly resumed traffic in May.
leith
The hit this time seems to be close to the Kerch end. The road bridge deck is very close to the surface there (from available footage of the damage maybe 20 feet). I’d have thought this makes it very vulnerable to an upwards blast from the sea surface as the deck itself would help contain the blast to some extent. The rail bridge is on much higher piers along most of its length. This combined with the fact that the rail bridge is narrower makes the road bridge the obvious target for this type of attack I guess.
Good point Barbara Ann.
And d74’s comment below says that part of the pillar supporting the track has collapsed. Perhaps they moored the USV, or maybe a UUV, right close up to the pillar before detonating it. That could have been part of the shock that twisted and dropped the span.
It’ll be interesting to see if Russia is able to recover any debris from the delivery vehicle.
Of course a different possibility is that it was another Putin provocation in order to stop the grain deal from being extended. It reportedly only affected one lane of the road bridge. And there was no apparent damage to the rail bridge, which bears the majority of the resupply tonnage.
The Russians say 1 or 2 stealth boats. Probably filled to the brim with a high explosive. Part of the pillar supporting the track has collapsed. Localized damages are extensive. Repairs will take a long time. Note that rail traffic remains unscathed.
Let’s admire the accuracy of the canoes’ steering.
When the Russians finally get their defenses up to scratch, the Ukrainians will have to switch to underwater drones.
The pro-Ukrainians can be satisfied. Hope can carry on. Peace imposed on Moscow is another question.
Correction.
At least two Russian publications claim that the pillar has not been touched.
This pillar is T-shaped, with a single pillar and two wings supporting the road on either side of the central pillar.
It seemed to me that the wing supporting one lane had collapsed.
Back in service mid-November. Let’s find out.
Humph. Mind if I submit a comment from a European perspective, TTG? Got up this morning and discovered that my English guru, Dr North, is ill, which is sobering news, and somehow from that got to wondering how this war thing really works in 2023. Dr North has been analysing UK defence for the past few decades and is seldom pleased with what he finds, So some random thoughts from a slightly damp hilltop somewhere on the outskirts of my failing continent.
Those thoughts are that it’s got so lethal and destructive now, modern “conventional” warfare at an intense level, that I’m not sure it works as a viable means of defence any more.
Even the current war is playtime compared to what it could be. The Ukrainians don’t have the gear to do serious damage. The Russians don’t have the intention. It’s still murderous.
The Russians are holding half a million or more men back in case the war expands to Europe. Also churning out kit at a rate of knots. The big surprise for me last year was that European NATO was militarily negligible. But say we in Europe were similarly tooled up and mobilised?
Chirkin’s not a good witness. Suspect in a few ways. But what came across from his summary at the start of the SMO was revealing. The Russians had cut into the forces facing them like a knife through butter. They’d virtually demolished the first Ukrainian army and hammered their rear areas. And all Chirkin can say about that, essentially, is “This is not the total war we learned to fight in my day!”
If that’s not total war over in Ukraine – and still very much isn’t when you look at what’s going on now – what would “total war” in Europe look like were the Russians to get serious and if European NATO had the means to get serious back?
It’d shatter both sides. The big population centres only need a few precision missiles to destroy infrastructure and even if it stopped at that most would starve and freeze. Maybe the Russians could take that – no idea – but the European countries would split apart in civil disorder. It’d not be a war where “winning” meant anything else but disintegration.
I still see on English blogs every now and again some dumb comment like “Send the British Army over there. That’d sort out the Ruskies soon enough”. And though most are not that dumb, many are still living in the old BAOR days when American and European muscle, given the more primitive armaments of those times, had a fair chance of holding their own and most of the action far from these shores in any case.
Good times, those, for many, the old Cold war. Time we stopped thinking we’re living in them still. For even given the near terminal casualty figures of this current war it’s still for many a phoney war over there. They’re still partying like there’s no tomorrow in Kiev and life proceeds much as normally in Moscow. We live in dreamland if we think total war in Europe and Russia would be anything like that.
And that’s what we in Europe are doing. Living in dreamland. Even the Germans and East Europeans who should know, if anyone did, what devastation means. The Baerbocks and the Wallaces only get away with their martial posturing because few in Europe know it’s only that. And if Scholz and Stoltenberg think that putting three hundred thousand men in a Rapid Response Force on our Eastern border, even could we mobilise and equip such a force, would mean anything in the context of total war, they urgently need some quiet time in the padded cell.
Total war these days doesn’t work even were we equipped for waging it. It’s not a realistic means of defence even for the big players. I reckon the reason the Americans have let their conventional forces become little more than an adjunct of the pork barrel is that they’ve grasped that truth long since, and put their money on psyops and proxy war and knocking the small fry about, with MAD for backup. That’s all can be done in the way of war, these days, when the real thing is so self-destructive.
EO,
Top Russian Telegram hosts have early this morning presented the commonly accepted view over there that this bridge attack was performed by your special services in conjunction with the Ukrainians. I thought the same thing, privately to myself and even wrote a brief note for TTG, to post here before thinking better and trashing it. My reasoning was very simple. I deduced, correctly or not, that Biden must have tried diligently to get your leaders under control on the issue of attacking sensitive Russian infrastructures in at minimum Voronezh & Kursk oblasts (the missiles which range these objects are over there — UK & Fr origin afaik if the Himars are not counted, and I don’t, temporarily because the US domestic political scene militates against escalation – you yourself make a superb argument above) and … Ben Wallace’s fall from grace in addition to some very eloquently bitter opinion pieces in the Daily Telegram led me to conclude that your leadership (or the dominant faction) wasn’t about to simulate an entirely relaxed attitude in response. This Crimean bridge attack perfectly dovetails – not a hit at V or B oblast (or the Nuclear power station at Sverdlovsk which was visited by armed drones last week) and oh so diplomatically subtle in not using the recently sent missile armaments which such interior hits would need to utilize. It’s straight out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Anyway, they think it’s you guys. It needn’t surprise or trouble anyone.
Ru Telegram channel post. Translated.
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⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside
Our source in the OP said that the attack on the Crimean bridge was carried out using the British REMUS 600 autonomous underwater robot with an additional load of explosives. Thanks to its ability to move under water at a depth of up to 600 meters and easy control from a laptop, it was launched from a civilian vessel in the Black Sea, it has a flight duration of about 70 hours at a speed of up to 5 knots. With increased cargo capacity, it has a range of 286 nautical miles, almost 500 km.
https://t.me/resident_ua/18765
F & L. We have that reputation. Judging by one or two scathing remarks the Colonel let drop from time to time, we were heavily into the squalid stuff in Syria.
Not only the Colonel’s remarks. Later, the figures for what we’d spent on the squalid stuff in Syria were published and the amount was quite surprisingly high.
So we’ve got form. We’ve got pedigree. But I’ve never seen any hard evidence for what we might have been up to in Ukraine so don’t venture an opinion on it.
On Wallace, all sorts of reasons are advanced for his leaving but I think he was getting ahead of the rush for the door we’re seeing with many Conservative MP’s. The early bird gets the worm and quality post-politics sinecures don’t grow on trees.
But this is the bit of your comment I found reassuring. “the US domestic political scene militates against escalation.” So no mushroom clouds. That’s nice.
I mentioned Dr North above. He saw the English political scene from close quarters and didn’t think much of it in general. Also saw something of the procurement scene – ” I almost brokered a deal that would have solved overnight the RAF’s chronic shortage of helicopter lift in Afghanistan, with a number of machines flown by Nato-qualified pilots, lined up and ready to go.
“I was able to put signed lease documents in front of the Defence Secretary and the contract was only stopped when the RAF lied about the suitability of the machines (Mi-17s), failing to disclose that they were already secretly operating the type in Afghanistan, on special forces missions flown by RAF pilots.”
So our procurement is not exactly immaculate either.
Pictures of the English underwater drone/torpedos that hit the bridge are all over the internet but you’ve seen no evidence. Interesting attitude for someone who worries about how bad things might get. The Rooskie elite squirreled away zillions in your “City of London” and it’s offshoring tentacles. That’s what keeps you out of harm’s way for the time being. Then there’s retired Kgb general Ushakov’s thesis that Putin and his gremlins are busy selling off Russia behind everyone’s back in their swansong of treacherous thievery dressed up in plywood with layers of shellac and dancing girls. Once a myopic jingoistic empire always so, said Viscount Higham-Taylor Subramaham Ippleswitch Crumpetbottom of Toffed Himself on Lavender by Twit.
F&L,
Ukraine is also developing their own USVs similar to the Brit one. I think the smaller TLK 150 is already a reality. The larger TLK 400 would be big enough to hose up a bridge. If they ever get that massive TLK 1000 built, they could take down a bridge abutment if it could ever get near it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyEZ87rebeg
TTG,
Thanks. The voice in that video sure sounds British to me. I can’t place the dialect precisely but it’s not any variety of American, doesn’t sound at all Aussie either or Canadian. A Ukrainian who studied English from UK tutors? A stretch in my opinion. It very possibly is one of several robotic canned voice samples which do auto-text reading. Why pick a Brit accent, a tell? It does crank up the weirdness factor, desirable for spookery I guess. What do you think – if an American Air Force Base was set up in a port in New Guinea or Aftica and five years later the tribesmen bombed and strafed their neighbors with a military aircraft – did the tribesmen develop the aircraft? Yes I understand that Ukraine was a huge engineering power in it’s own right years ago. I’m just trying to tell you that no one is buying the story. But you make another point only too well – the Russians are really up the river without canoes or paddles, I do get that.
For what little my opinion is worth, I have stated repeatedly that this war is theater, and Russia was supposed to win. However, my own resources told me otherwise. For me, I’m most interested in seeing how it all shapes up to see how my insights perform. So, let me make some observations:
Russian propaganda and those who support it do seem to be singing from the same songbook: Col. MacGregor, Moon of Alabama, Naked Capitalism, Tucker Carlson and the supposed “Right.”
NATO as a whole, and Eastern European countries, led by Poland, the Baltics, and the Nordic countries are preparing for a larger war in the future. From the outset, I’ve repeatedly stated my opinion that this was meant by TPTB to expand, even to include China.
I don’t think the West is supposed to win, however, in war reality plays its own game. In the current propaganda stream, not only are Russia and China “supposed” to be greater warriors than the West, but the Western countries are under internal attacks to degrade their citizens and institutions and to fill their countries with foreigners who do not share their culture.
Much more can be said, but I believe that Western civilization will not only triumph, but that the hubris of those who think that they have arranged for everything will be their undoing. In other words, the Gods will destroy them.
That being said, the war you fear is coming. Perhaps ET will save us.
I am sure that you and I are a universe apart on pretty much everything else, but I agree with this comment (and many of your others on the Ukraine war) 1000%. Why in God’s name does the Western war party not understand they are leading us straight to hell?
This below appears today on Strelkov’s Telegram channel – it is forwarded from another channel “Black Colonel” whose author is a respected military commenter. Translation by bot.
High marks for operational and technically sensitive informational security. Wouldn’t you agree? Russian “patriots.”
Of course I’m joking, we all know this and they know we do. Everything below the link is their public text. This is a good development and hopefully will continue if they prepare to launch really serious weapons. For example, the wisest approach will be to have experts describe at length the technical characteristics of the weapons and complain about how antiquated it is. Speed, range, targets, fuel, launching sites. Anything about fuses or software also appreciated. Reminder again – joking. But if your mind wanders a bit, does it make you suspect anything?
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https://t.me/strelkovii/6096
Another successful attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Crimean Bridge was inevitable due to two factors.
The first is political, connected with the policy of “agreements” with Ukraine and its allies, which the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin personally are actively trying to pursue. The “grain deal” allowed Ukraine to launch semi-submersible kamikaze drones from the sea coast near Odessa, as well as from sea cargo ships that provide this deal from the Black Sea. This is also facilitated by a virtual ban on strikes against Ukrainian transport communications, as well as against production facilities involved in the production of Ukrainian Mykola-3 marine drones, as well as against energy facilities that provide these enterprises with energy.
The second factor is military-technical. The Russian army does not have weapons systems capable of successfully combating semi-submersible kamikaze drones. Hundreds of defense industries and research institutes were deliberately destroyed in the largest deindustrialization in world history in 30 years. As a result, thousands of technologies were lost, and in this regard, our lagging behind the advanced countries is already decades.
For a successful fight against semi-submersible kamikaze drones, their timely detection by means of space and aviation technical intelligence is necessary.
But our space grouping is extremely small in number and is not able to fulfill this task.
Our naval aviation is more dead than alive. In order to timely detect these drones and target strike aircraft at them, it is necessary to provide round-the-clock patrolling of the airspace over the Black Sea by anti-submarine patrol aircraft equipped with modern radar equipment for detecting surface and underwater objects. But according to the open press, we have only 22 obsolete Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft and about 20 Tu-142s in the Northern and Pacific fleets. All of them, in terms of their tactical and technical characteristics, do not meet the requirements of today and are significantly inferior to the modern American Boeing P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft, of which only the United States has 128 and dozens of their allies. In addition, it is not known whether the outdated radar equipment of our Il-38 and Tu-142 will be able to provide effective detection of small-sized semi-submersible kamikaze drones. The supply of new anti-submarine aircraft for the Russian army is not even planned.
Another effective means of detecting semi-submersible kamikaze drones are airborne early warning and control aircraft (AWACS), which easily detect surface sea targets. But even with this we have huge problems. Our nine obsolete A-50 (A-50U) aircraft manufactured in the 1980s, due to their small number, are not capable of meeting all the needs of the Armed Forces, and we do not have the production of new AWACS aircraft.
And without long-range detection of semi-submersible kamikaze drones by technical means, followed by targeting strike aircraft at them, an effective fight against them “on distant frontiers” is impossible.
Only passive means of combat remain – blocking the Kerch Strait with booms, which proved their effectiveness back in the years of the First World War for combating submarines. Judging by today’s attack, they are absent in the Kerch Strait. Why? Is there a large sea traffic from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov and vice versa in the conditions of war in connection with the entry of the Russian grouping to the coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and its transformation into the inland sea of the Russian Federation? Is it really impossible to temporarily completely stop this traffic and thereby secure the Crimean bridge at least from the strikes of semi-submersible kamikaze drones.
I am sure that now among my readers there will be many who will begin to ask the question: “What does Putin have to do with it?”.
I hope most people don’t ask this question.
Just found this comment by Nesmayen (Ru intellectual and strong critic of Pu regime, though I suppose he could be FSB in reality, who knows?) on the Crimean Bridge strike #2. It’s my own thoughts as outlined to EO above almost verbatim.
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Great Britain during the entire conflict adheres to the most rigid position in relation to its results. Its leadership has always stood for not just the defeat of Russia, but for a crushing defeat, including the complete exhaustion of all military capabilities.
It is worth noting that almost all aggravations are marked by the presence of the British. The destruction of the cruiser Moskva, the story around Bucha that was untwisted in the blink of an eye, the first and now the second undermining of the Crimean bridge – everywhere one way or another, but it was the British special services and the British military that slipped through. As well as the British media, as it was in the same Bucha. And everywhere the escalation was preceded by the strengthening of the position of Britain’s more restrained coalition partners.
This time everything is like clockwork: a NATO summit, where the “moderate” members of the alliance won a fairly convincing victory – and an almost instantaneous response from the UK. Only a few days have passed since the end of the summit in Vilnius – and just around the same time, preparations for today’s attack should be completed. Apparently, the British launched a scenario of attacking the bridge literally immediately after the summit.
Well, I don’t at all approve of HMG’s current foreign policy. Nor do I approve of chest-beating claims that we are “delivering the leadership that the world turns to Great Britain to actually provide.”
(https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-munich-security-conference)
I don’t approve of what I’m pretty sure we got up to in Syria and if I knew about it for certain I probably wouldn’t approve of what we’re getting up to the Ukraine.
For all that it’s scarcely necessary to point out on this site that far from HMG being a real player in this crisis we are, as said to TTG recently, all hat and no cattle when it comes to bringing military or economic or diplomatic force to bear. Like it or not, and I don’t much, that is the position.
The big European player is Germany. Here, set out unvarnished, is the German take on the conflict:-
EXKLUSIV INTERVIEW: Klitschko und Baerbock sprechen über Nato, Gegenoffensive und westliche Hilfen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib_CCG0teWo&t=4s
The take is clear enough. In 2014 Ukraine suffered unprovoked Russian aggression. So also in 2022. Ukraine is fighting, not only for its own freedom and independence, but for the freedom and independence of Europe as a whole. More help is needed to enable it to do that.
With the exception of a very few fringe figures I do not see that take, that story, challenged in Germany. Obviously I don’t get to hear all that Wagenknecht, or Weidel, or the softer wing of the SDP say but I hear some of it and on no occasion have I seen that story seriously challenged.
There’s plenty of anger in Germany at the economic effects of the war, and plenty of politicians looking to cash in on the popular discontent with those effects. There are plenty who fear escalation. But no serious challenge to the story.
This in stark contrast to the US, where there are plenty who challenge the story openly. Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe and the paymaster of much of it, is getting increasingly worried about the economic and security consequences of that Klitschko/Baerbock “take” or story about the Ukrainian war set out in that video above; but almost all there believe the take itself.
On the personal or anecdotal level, I can add that amongst my own circle of acquaintances there are none who do not believe that story. All are convinced, often vehemently, that the Russians are in the wrong and we in the right.
But the story doesn’t fit well with what’s going to happen.
As has been obvious since February 2022 the Russians will absorb such parts of the old Party of Regions area as they choose and neutralise the rest.
There are hopes still in Washington that the rest, “remnant Ukraine”, can continue to be provided with military assistance after the military defeat in order to continue the struggle. But it’s pretty clear the Russians won’t permit that.
If that were all the future would be assured. Europe automatically enters a new Cold War period with all that that entails in the way of increased defence expenditure, remilitarisation, and freezing European/Russian relations.
But it’s not all, possibly. The Russians also want their 2021 security demands met. I don’t see how the European politicians can agree to that. In practical terms, and to take but one aspect of those demands, they cannot agree to moving missile bases further away without unacceptable loss of face.
I don’t believe that the Russians have the military power, or the inclination, to get those missile bases moved by military means. They were reluctant, my view, to undertake their SMO and they won’t want to undertake further military operations in Europe. That would disrupt their economy, meet with disapproval from their new trading partners, and would risk coming up against the US directly.
So if the Russians do wish to see those 2021 security demands met, even in part, they must either give up on those demands or resort to their economic power over Europe and particularly over Germany. That means counter-sanctions.
Germany and other EU economies are still dependent on Russian LNG, oil and raw materials. They have recently been asking the Russians for more. Their economies will certainly suffer if they get less or none.
None know at present whether the Russians will press their 2021 security demands in earnest after the war, or if they do, how they will press for them. But if the Russians do press those demands the European politicians would either have to accede to them, or allow further disruption of the already severely disrupted European economy.
I don’t see any European politicians considering what they would do should they be faced with that choice.
I don’t believe that the Russians have the military power, or the inclination, to get those missile bases moved by military means.
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Is this statement of yours in observation of the weekly ‘Understatement Tuesday’ ritual the existence of which is a closely guarded UK state secret? If so, you’re typing very close to an official secrets violation, EO.
Huge difference between what the Russians are doing now, with logistics nice and close and clear military superiority, and rampaging through Europe with the Americans rampaging back.
Unless we attack Kaliningrad or Belarus, or go for Russia directly, there’s no incentive I can see for the Russians to go further than they’re going now.
They’d have to mobilise many more than they’ve done so far and spend more too. Why would they bother? As argued above a cheaper and safer way to get those missiles moved, if that’s what they still want, would be to just let the contracts expire without renewing them.
…………………………
The Euros, with that ineffable sense of entitlement that always comes off them, take it for granted they have an inalienable right to Russian fossil fuels and raw materials. Even while, as Borrell said at the start, they’re doing their level best to damage Russia!
Didn’t work like that last time. Last time round the Russians and the Germans fought like the devil to deprive each other of the use of the oil fields in the Caucasus. This time round, the Russians are facing German Panzers and all the rest of it in combat – and are still supplying the Germans with the raw materials to make’em! Dumb, and the Euros shouldn’t take it for granted it’ll carry on.
That sanctions war was never going to work unless it worked quickly and it hasn’t. The Scholz/Habeck Barbarossa II is a bust. Today’s White Tiger has no teeth and such claws as it has at its disposal are American. Washington’s now casting around for some way of getting out of the mess without losing face. The Euros, and in this context that includes HMG, should follow suit and stop insisting more Ukrainians are fed into the killing fields.
EO,
I agree with you on the state of the UK military. It has been hollowed out over the years and is now more of a boutique military, maybe capable for very small operations, but certainly not for a major war. The German military appears to be in worse shape.
Poland is quickly becoming the major military force in NATO. Together with the new NATO partners of Finland and Sweden, this will be the core of the NATO military within Europe. Together with the Ukrainian military, this force can shield Western Europe from any further Russian aggression. Western Europe’s main contribution is to become, along with the US, the “arsenal of democracy” once again. I also agree with you that Russia has no appetite for any further military adventurism in Europe. Everyone, including the Kremlin, are now aware of the inadequacies of the Russian military.
Economically, the EU is still in the withdrawal phase of their trade with Russia. Neither the EU nor Russia could afford to quit cold turkey on that trade relationship. I seriously doubt trade patterns will ever return to what they were prior to the Russian invasion for many years to come.
Let’s talk future for a moment. If the Ukrainians can get out of this war with only the loss of the Donbass, and Crimea they should count their lucky stars. NATO will pat itself on its back but its true nature is revealed. It is w/o any credible force b/c Western Europe has self immasculated. If the American taxpayer w/n pay for another 75 years of European security they will have to look east for defenders. Eastern Europeans see this and will push for Ukraine to join NATO. The west will have neither the moral courage nor practical will to resist. The deal will be the west pays the bill and the east provides the muscle. Western Europe will agree. The line of defense against Russian hegemony will be Finland, Poland, the three Baltic states, Ukraine, Czech, and Slovakia. I have no idea where the Romanians, Bulgarians, and Hungarians are in this. Foolishly Russia let her mask slip; she can’t give up on the idea of restoration of the Czar’s empire. Also, Trump was right in arguing against Russian energy reliance and questioning Russia as an equal partner in trade w/EU. This leaves every day Russians with their eyes turned east. Their trading partners, and military pals b/c Persia, Turkey, Kazakstan, and China. These countries were NOT treated well by the Russians b/t 1775 – 1875 and will remember. Are Russians west of Ekaterinaberg ok w/this? I wonder if my in laws in St Petersburg know any Farsi? My my, how the worm (may) turn.
The Russians will have to become very good at repairing that bridge, since they are not very good at defending it.
Interesting how the Ukrainian held bridges over the Dniepr are still intact.
Russia has generally refrained from anything like US-style “Strategic” bombing of Ukrainian infrastructure – so far – but I expect that their response to this attack will show that they *do* have that capability.
Yes, leaving the Dniepr bridges [above Zaporizhzhia] intact might seem like an odd choice; why make it possible for an enemy to keep re-supplying their front-line forces? But it’s consistent with one of the stated aims of the “SMO”: to destroy Ukraine’s military by drawing their forces into range of Russian artillery. That’s a bit of a stretch, but I find it more plausible than the idea that Russia doesn’t have weapons which could blow those bridges.
elkern,
Russia hasn’t refrained from a US style strategic bombing of Ukraine. They tried and have proven incapable of pulling it off. They can’t even get air superiority over Ukraine. Their missile attacks might be successful in bringing Ukraine to her knees if they launched 300 to 500 missiles a night for a solid couple of weeks, but that effort is beyond their capability.
The retaliatory attack on Odesa consisted of 6 Kalibr missiles and two dozen drones. That is not a strategic bombing campaign or even the beginning of one.
elkern
Putin’s stated aim of the SMO is to demilitarize Ukraine, not necessarily by drawing it into range of Russian artillery.
I still remember the predictions of swift capitulation of Kiev or failing that, the big encirclement of Ukrainian troops in the Donbass.
None of it happened because the Russians proved incapable of pulling it off.
The question of the bridges over the Dnieper is puzzling though.
Recently the Russians managed a direct Iskander hit onto the Antonovsky bridge, collapsing one span. So they have some capability in that regard. I doubt they have enough of these to destroy all the important crossings over the Dnieper and keep them offline, but they are not trying to destroy even a single bridge in retaliation for the Kerch bridge attacks.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12305599/Major-double-strike-hits-Putins-3billion-bridge-linking-Russia-illegally-annexed-Crimea.html
Is this part of shaping the battlefield or just another tactical opportunity? If nothing else this continues to demonstrate that Putin’s ego keeps getting battered. His quick strike topple the Ukrainian government military invasion hasn’t achieved any of his aims. That must be galling.
blue peacock,
Putin has his panties in a wad because Ukraine, a country he doesn’t believe should even exist, blew a hole in his favorite bridge… twice. It makes him look impotent. He has to blame someone else. I’m surprised he didn’t lay this on the US.
NATO should enter Ukraine but only to round up more Ukrainians for conscription. I don’t want my tax dollars paying for this war but if I am forced to pay it they should be forced to fight. Round them all up to include women.
Babeltuap,
Who do you think makes up the current Ukrainian military? Kyiv was able to man an additional dozen or so brigades while replenishing their battle losses. They have the men and women. They need the weapons and ammunition.
TTG,
Ukraine put women into combat? How are they doing on the battlefield? What happened to all the equipment everyone has already provided them?
Fred,
Yes they do. I watched the videos and read the accounts of Ukrainian women operating ATGM systems, serving as snipers and even leading mortar and automatic grenade launcher units in the thick of combat. Mostly I’ve seen them in front line medical units. Concerning the equipment, all those new units raised need equipment.
You need to adjust your dated world view, Fred. Most advanced militaries today have a sizable female component.
TTG,
Glory to Ukraine! The sacred land of borders that have always been protected by NATO, except for those first 50+ years. Now with women signing up for the draft. “Territorial Defense Forces”. To defend the territory of the government placed into power by the National Endowment for Democracy and Victoria Nuland. BTW it appears she’s not getting promoted any time soon.
Lars,
A world view so dated that in my own lifetime Ukraine’s armed forces were a threat to Western Europe and NATO was prepared to kill them by the tens of thousands.
Fred,
The territorial borders of Ukraine were established in 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR. The border was guaranteed by Russia, the US and the UK in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. The exact border was agreed to in detail in 2003 in a bilateral Russia-Ukraine treaty. Neither the National Endowment for Democracy nor Victoria Nuland had anything to do with those agreements.
Women are not getting conscripted. Go back and read what I wrote. Conscript the women. I don’t care about this war but I do care about my tax dollars. If I don’t have a choice where it goes I want to win regardless. Round up the women just like the men to include old women just like old men. Getting sick of my money wasted on lost causes but even more sick of this double standard where men have to always tow this line getting conscripted and drafted. NO. Make them equal. Bet all these wars stop immediately and people start actually working things out.
Babeltuap,
That’s happened since the beginning of the war. The laws were changed n December 2021 prior to the invasion.
“Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has updated regulations to expand its national reserves by requiring more women to register with the Armed Forces. Now, women working in a wide range of professions, including librarians, journalists, musicians and psychologists, will be required to register for potential combat service.”
This is for service in the Territorial Defense Forces, but those units now often perform as front line combat units. This certainly hasn’t led to Ukrainian women calling for an end to the war before Russian troops are removed from Ukrainian territory.
That’s because they can’t vote anymore under martial law. If this was the position before the war they would not support war I guarantee it. Now they don’t have a choice under tyranny.
“… I want to win regardless. Round up the women just like the men…”
heck, let’s conscript American women too & send ’em over to fight! promise ’em they might get property rights over their reproductive organs upon return… if they even want to come back to the 19th Century. think of the tax savings.
@Babeltuap
If someone were to force the Ukrainian men and women to fight, is it fair to say that that someone would be sending many of them into certain death?
Jovan P,
Russia is forcing the Ukrainian men and women to fight by continuing their invasion. Putin is sending Russians to die in Ukraine for nothing more than his desire for his own grand legacy.
Jovan I would have to be an acrobat to keep up w/y twists of logic. Ukraine did not invade Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia is responsible for all the destruction of buildings, infrastructure, lives, and fortunes b/c Russia started this war; Russia. Are you saying that any weaker country whose chances for holding back a bigger aggressor should submit or, their leadership is guilty of sending its people to certain death? Is that your position? Here’s a way to stop the killing. Russian soldiers go back to Russia, Russia stops sending drones into Ukrainian houses, permits Ukraine to sell its wheat, and respects the sovereign state of Ukraine. There’s the rub. Russia has never accepted the state of Ukraine nor the existence of a Ukrainian people. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was set in motion in the summer of ’91 when Ukrainians pronounced themselves free men and women. If that were so then Russia could never be restored as an empire. The war is easy to understand. I’m betting that Ukrainians are not ready to give up. Not yet. BTW if Russia successfully destroys Ukrainian independence do you think they will leave Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania alone. Yes Yes, I know they are NATO but Russian pressure on their borders, threats, and restrictions of passage can make a little state like Estonia wonder if NATO is dependable. Should your rule of “little states surrender” apply in the Baltics as well?
An interesting aspect is it appears to have been hit on the north side, which means whatever hit it came from the Sea of Azov. There is a strong current from that side, a lot of fresh water flows into the Azov, one study found that even when the tide is coming in the flow is from north to south at the surface most of the time, it just slows down.
Something disguised as flotsam, like a log, with very minimal propulsion could be guided into the piers from the north, simply by riding the strong current flowing through there. Most anything launched from the Crimean shore to the north is assured to get to the bridge.
It’s a fair bet most of the Russian eyes are looking to the south for things approaching, and anything approaching from that direction is going against the current and stands out like a sore thumb.
Mark –
That’s an intriguing suggestion. If launched from the Crimean shore as you posit, then perhaps it was the Atesh Resistance Group. The Guardian had an article on them yesterday. Key takeaway “There is no evidence linking the group to the latest attack on the Kerch Bridge, early on Monday morning, but the group has claimed a string of smaller-scale attacks, blowing up Russian checkpoints, assassinating Russian officers, setting fire to barracks and feeding sensitive information to Ukrainian intelligence.” No evidence, but it could have been them certainly.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/17/the-underground-crimean-tatar-group-taking-up-arms-against-russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atesh_(movement)
Or perhaps the Berdiansk Partisan Army? They are also on the Sea of Azov and could have been the source. Although up to now they have mainly been dealing with Quislings. And surely they are one of the sources of intel targeting of the many successful Ukrainian missile hits in the Berdiansk area and port? Their logo even has a nautical theme with anchor and piranha. If you consider ‘means, motive, and opportunity’ They have the last two and could get ‘the means’ via the GUR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berdiansk_Partisan_Army
leith,
I’m mostly pushing back on the notion this required anything like double-O-seven super-spook gadgetry. A piece of poly pro sewer pipe, the propulsion system from one of the new powered foiling surf boards, the bark and some branches of a tree, a Go-Pro, remote control with a few miles of range. To the boys who made those earlier USVs with high powered motors and welded aluminium? Child’s play.
That makes sense Mark. What explosive would they use? And how much much can they pack in that sewer pipe?
leith,
Just spit-balling off the top of my head, there’d be about 25 cubic feet of volume in a 20′ long section of 18″ dia pipe. Enough volume for most any modern explosive would do the job…if detonated in contact with the pier.
I got 35 cu ft, which gives you 40% more available for your device. That is if 18 is the internal diameter. Or if I haven’t forgotten the formula.
In any case it hould be easy to homebrew up some ANFO if they don’t have access to anything else.
Not extreme in the least to call this required viewing, assuming interest.
Edward Luttwalk: Biden and Putin are ready to do a deal;
https://youtu.be/2bIdcu0o9Pc
AN interesting side note on modern bridge damage and reconstruction was just published by Practical Engineering about the collapse of the I-95 bridge near Philly, USA after a tanker truck caught fire.
Philadelphia I-95 Bridge Collapse Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKNw1mnA5M0
If Wikipedia is correct, there are maps showing different areas of damage to the Kerch Bridge 2023, and 2022 ,respectively.
2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Crimean_Bridge_explosion
2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Crimean_Bridge_explosion
Most thought provoking (for me) is the statement in the Practical Engineering video that most bridges are not built with resistance to fire damage in mind as, for large bridges, there are often fire fighter teams to suppress fires, and emergency crews to close a bridge (for safety) soon after a significant fire event.
I cannot help but wonder about unseen structural damage on the Kerch bridge. Time will tell.
kj