More than the military-logistical damage, the damage to the Crimean bridge is a political-image blow to Russia. Because from a military-logistical point of view, the traffic will indeed decrease by two times for a certain time. We also do not know when train traffic will resume. But politically, the explosion could even lead to a fracture in Russia, and the reason for this is that this structure is the icing on the cake of the annexation of Crimea. Putin was personally proud of him
.
How did they hurt him?
In my opinion, it is at least three missiles that were fired at him.
Perhaps of the "Harpoon" type (known in the IDF as Canary; AZ) or a "Nepton" cruise missile made in Ukraine.
The results of the Crimea Bridge explosion // Social networks, Reuters
The claim regarding the explosion of the inferno truck does not hold, in my understanding.
It is impossible to enter the lanes of this bridge by vehicle without strict checks: documents are checked, luggage is checked.
The point is that from an engineering point of view, this bridge suffers from a disadvantage: it is not planted in stable ground and is therefore not stable enough.
For this reason, Russia constantly regulates the load on the bridge, meaning that a certain weight cannot be exceeded.
That's why at both entrances to the bridge there are literally border crossings for everything.
Second, if it was only a truck, we would see the collapse of only one section of road.
But we clearly see that two sections have collapsed.
Add to that the explosion on the railway bridge.
What caused the explosion there?
It does not appear to have been a secondary explosion to the vehicular bridge explosion.
There is also a video from a dashboard camera in a car that drove through the bridge and caught the explosion: you hear in the recording that something is approaching the bridge, and immediately after that the explosion occurs.
A helicopter participates in the firefighting efforts on the bridge connecting Russia to the occupied Crimea, photo: AFP
And thirdly, the fact that Russia is extremely afraid to admit the possibility that it was a shooting by the Ukrainian army, only strengthens the assessment.
To admit that Ukraine hit the bridge - like kicking Putin in the foot.
After all, they promised to protect him with all available forces.
After the attack about two months ago at the airport near Saki in the morning, they promised in Moscow that the bridge is so protected that there is not even a chance to approach it.
They said that not even a fly could pass through it.
Where was the vaunted S-400 system?
Where are other defense systems?
It turns out that another Russian myth has collapsed.
Will Russia respond with a nuclear explosion?
In my opinion, the chances of that are small.
Putin is afraid of apocalyptic decisions from which there is no return.
I see from his behavior that time after time he tries to shift the responsibility to some group of people.
He pulls and pulls, until the situation is critical.
It doesn't seem to me that he is ready today to "go to hell or heaven", as he once said, so I believe that the nuclear threat is more of a bluff.
The most he can do now is conduct a nuclear test in the Arctic Ocean.
The extent of the damage and the firefighting efforts at the bridge // Social networks
What Russia might do now as a response, in my estimation, is a few missile strikes or a widespread attack by Iranian drones. It has nothing new, and it cannot further escalate the situation on the front. It has no option to give an order to go on the offensive, because it does not have What? We are, of course, preparing for missile barrages. But even the damage from such barrages will be less than the image damage caused by the damage to the Crimean bridge.
The writer is a military commentator from Kiev, colonel in resp. in the operations wing of the Ukrainian army
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