By Mithil AggarwalNBC
News
Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently needed no excuse to sow terror and destruction in Ukraine since he launched his full-scale invasion nearly eight months ago.
But as he boasted of his military's assault on Monday morning, Putin sought to frame the attacks as revenge for the blast that damaged his landmark bridge connecting Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula.
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A massive explosion set Kerch Bridge ablaze on Saturday morning, hitting not only a key supply route for Moscow's forces in southern Ukraine, but a site of huge symbolic importance to the Russian leader.
The subsequent spate of deadly Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure was hailed by pro-Kremlin hawks as evidence of the escalation they had been seeking after weeks of battlefield setbacks.
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"This was the first attack on Russian critical infrastructure," Frank Ledwidge, senior professor of law and strategy at the University of Portsmouth, told NBC News.
“So there is a certain line that the Russians would see has been crossed.”
The bridge was always an obvious "red line," the editor-in-chief of Russia's state news channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, said on Monday.
She is credited as a screenwriter for the 2018 romantic comedy film
The Crimean Bridge.
Made with Love!
, which was directed by her husband, a sign of the prominence that the Kremlin's allies sought to give the bridge in Russian popular culture.
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Simonyan was one of many voices from the hawks who expressed their anger after the bridge explosion and their delight at Monday's apparent retaliation.
But kyiv tried to refute the idea that the two things were directly related, with the Ukrainian Defense Ministry saying that Monday's attacks "were planned by the Russians since the beginning of October."
The attacks appeared to target critical infrastructure ahead of winter, although a children's playground was also affected.
While it was unclear whether the bridge explosion and Monday's assault were related, what was clear was the value of the bridge to both sides.
Two people look at the fire on the Kerch bridge linking Crimea with Russia, on October 8, 2022. Roman Dmitriyev / AFP via Getty Images
Putin accused Ukraine of “terrorism” after the huge explosion that rocked the strategically crucial bridge over the Kerch Strait, between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, early on Saturday.
Russian authorities said the blast was a truck bomb attack carried out by kyiv's special services.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incident, but its officials hailed what was seen as a daring attack on a target that has deep personal meaning for Putin, as well as its value in fueling his war effort.
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Ukraine had long voiced strong opposition to the construction of the bridge, which was seen as a symbol of Putin's territorial claims in the area.
For years, after the Kremlin illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, travel to Russia was only possible on overcrowded planes and ferries.
As sanctions hit and companies withdrew, the peninsula became increasingly isolated from the world.
Putin took personally the project of connecting Crimea with the Russian mainland, an ambition that both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had failed to realize.
He got in touch with his childhood friend and billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, who led the build.
The result was a 12-mile (19-kilometre) structure that was completed in 2018, becoming the longest double-span bridge in Europe at a cost of $3.6 billion.
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The bridge not only allowed the movement of people, but also quickly became a key route for the supply of perishable goods for residents, as well as cargo and military equipment.
It has a separate road and railway.
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Putin inaugurated the bridge leading a convoy in an orange truck that he drove himself.
On the Crimean edge, he was greeted by construction workers, whom he said his talent had made “this miracle” possible.
Saturday's explosion, which came hours after the Russian leader's 70th birthday, was a public humiliation.
"It was a really big achievement for him, and this bridge sealed it," Ledwidge said of Putin's annexation of Crimea.
A view shows a fire on the Kerch Bridge at dawn in the Kerch Strait, Crimea, October 8, 2022. Stringer/REUTERS
The bridge, especially the railway line, is a crucial artery for Russian forces in the area south of Kherson, where the Ukrainian army has been advancing, as well as in Zaporizhzhia and Crimea itself.
“The bridge was always going to be a target for covert operations or longer-range artillery systems supplied by the United States, which have been the real game changer,” James Nixey, director of the Russia-Eurasia Program at Russia, said on Saturday. ChathamHouse.
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"The only reason they can hold the Kherson front, and indeed their control of Crimea, in terms of supply, is because of that bridge," said Phillips O'Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
"If that bridge hadn't been built, Crimea would be doomed now," he clarified, adding that Russia would likely prioritize key supplies to the front line as long as the bridge had limited bandwidth.
As its military assaulted Ukrainian cities from the air, the Kremlin was busy repairing its prized possession.
The first Moscow-bound passenger train left Simferopol in Crimea on Saturday night after the Kremlin announced that the first test run of the railway had been successful, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
The Russian Transport Ministry said freight and passenger trains were running as planned on Sunday.
Road traffic had also resumed in some lanes, the British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update on Sunday, "but capacity will be seriously degraded."
"The Russians may be able to rebuild it," Nixey said, "but they can't defend it while losing a war."