“Part of the crossing collapsed into the sea.”
That’s a quote from voluminous Saturday coverage of extensive damage to the Kerch Strait Bridge, the sole link between Russia and Crimea.
“All I can say is that an echelon with fuel intended to supply occupation forces in the south of Ukraine was passing over the bridge,” a senior Ukrainian military official said. That “echelon” burst into flames when an adjacent truck blew up.
“A truck coming from the Taman Peninsula exploded on the road part of the Crimean Bridge at 6:07 AM today, causing seven fuel tanks of a train headed to the Crimean Peninsula to catch fire,” Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said, in a statement. “Two spans of the road bridge partially collapsed.”
Indeed they did. As The New York Times wrote, employing what felt like a mockingly wistful cadence, “two of four lanes of roadway collapsed into the Black Sea, where waves lapped the asphalt.” Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Volodymyr Zelensky, shared the picture (below) on social media for posterity.
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine and everything occupied by Russia must be expelled,” he wrote.
The bridge is reinforced concrete, which presumably means destroying it irrevocably would be exceptionally difficult, commensurate with the amount of effort expended to construct it in the first place. The arch over the navigable section wasn’t damaged, according to Moscow.
To say, as some did Saturday, that the bridge had “special significance” for Vladimir Putin would be to materially understate the case. He was obsessed with the project — it was, in his words, “a historical mission” to unite a “sacred place” with the “holy land.”
In March of 2016, frustrated by construction delays on a road connecting Simferopol (Crimea’s de facto capital) to the bridge, Putin told local officials that if the road wasn’t completed expeditiously, he might have to execute somebody. In the same set of remarks, he asked for volunteers. “A specific entity, a specific person responsible for the whole project is needed, so I wouldn’t have to call all government phones or regions,” he explained, visiting the peninsula on the two-year anniversary of the annexation. “There should be a specific person who can be hanged if [the road] isn’t done.” The Kremlin later said he was joking.
Whether the 12-mile bridge is destroyed or not, the spectacle of the fireball was the second major symbolic setback for Putin. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, which has mastered the fine art of sarcastic social media derision, took note. “The guided missile cruiser Moskva and the Kerch Bridge — two notorious symbols of Russian power in Ukrainian Crimea — have gone down,” the ministry jeered, before asking: “What’s next in line?”
Dmitri Peskov described the situation as an “emergency.” The chair of Putin’s puppet parliament in Crimea was aghast. “Ukrainian vandals were able to reach the Crimean bridge with their bloody hands,” he despaired.
Speaking of bloody hands, if the bridge isn’t repaired quickly, Russia’s forces will lose a key supply route. During the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive, the bridge was heavily trafficked by the Russian military, part of a panicked effort to resupply the front lines in Kherson. Although Putin still has land supply routes, Ukraine can target those with artillery.
The timing of the apparent attack was notable. It coincided with Putin’s 70th birthday, which Russia’s modern tsar celebrated just hours earlier.
In May of 2018, during a cartoonish celebration marking the completion of the highway, Putin barreled down the bridge behind the wheel of an orange dump truck with Russian flags mounted to the side mirrors (image below).
When he got to the other side, he delivered a kind of poor man’s version of George W. Bush’s infamous “mission accomplished” speech.
“Good afternoon, friends. My sincere congratulations on this wonderful event. This is a truly historic day because in different historical eras, including during the tsars’ reign, people dreamed of building this bridge,” he told a smallish crowd gathered for a concert. “This project — this miracle — has come true. Thank you very much.”
On Saturday, Ukraine’s security service channelled national poet Taras Shevchenko: “Dawn, the bridge is burning beautifully.”
The Ukrainian invasion gets worse for Russia every single day. As far as I am concerned the Ukrainians should do whatever they have to do. My sincere hope is no nukes or bio weapons will be brought to bear in this war. But it is looking inevitable. If that happens Nato is likely going in, and a trip to Moscow/St. Petersburgh and a Nurenburg style trial could be in the offiing. I pray that all this does not happen, but there is no off ramp for Putin now- other than an unconditional withdrawal.
Yeah, the objective reality here is that he’s losing. Outright. Not just relative to how the Russian military should’ve performed. And it’s not just “because Western weapons.” That’s a big part of it, but some of it is just poor performance and what certainly looks like a combination of strategic ineptitude and, more importantly, reluctant ground troops. I’m sorry, but this bridge should’ve been closed to anything other than military traffic. I mean, they’re at war. And it’s a supply route. If Russia was fighting NATO and NATO bombed it, that’d be excusable, but if you’re Russia, you can’t let Ukraine blow up that bridge with a truck bomb. The optics are terrible.
I probably shouldn’t speak so definitively about logistical issues. Obviously, I don’t know the details of how Russia is handling traffic on that bridge during the war. Maybe they have an elaborate set of procedures for safeguarding it, etc.
But what I can say is this: It’s a very important asset, both from a strategic and symbolic perspective, so it’s not ideal when it’s severely damaged by a truck bomb.
I have seen some analysis that suggests that a truck bomb would have been insufficient to do that much damage. The analyst said it would have had to have been a missile or ordinance under the bridge. Not sure about what to make of that analysis.
Real-time footage on the NYT site. It was dark so hard to say, but doesn’t look like a missile.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/08/world/russia-ukraine-war-news
I’m concerned about the news that Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that the air force chief, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, would be the commander of all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
It’s bad news. That dude is one cruel, hardcore, brutal SOB.
Ouch!!!
Yeah!!!!!
He’s a genius, very savvy….Trump on Putins invasion of Ukraine.
Expect a statement from Trump soon, saying this never would’ve happened if he was president.
And the strumming fingers crept closer to the red button
Putin is the non tech version of Musk in an over attribution sense.
Russia is already seeing hard times economically and seeing a real reduction in better goods availability from European and North America, a lot of young Russian men are dying in an unpopular war and now they see the supreme leader threatening the use of nuclear weapons when they are downwind of Ukraine. I think more and more Russians are thinking Putin needs to die… and quickly.
I wasn’t familiar with that bridge or its significance to Putin. But the posted picture of Putin’s inaugural crossing couldn’t help but make me recall our own symbolic truck-related hijinx by our own deranged autocrat.
https://www.thecut.com/2017/03/donald-trump-had-a-big-day-of-playing-with-trucks.html
just hoping Putin gets taken down from inside so this needless inhumane carnage can stop…just hoping…
A truck can carry far more explosive than a missile, so seems plausible it was a truck bomb. It isn’t clear if the rail line is hors combat, and that’s the logistically important part.
I think Putin is a dead man walking- for many reasons- I don’t undertand how or why he is still alive…Perhaps his inner circle is to some degree in denial-the Russian empire of the nineteenth century could easily fall apart- I think you’ll see big cracks in the firmament soon.. The trick is to get there without nukes..In the meantime, Biden’s attention to the Cuban missile crisis is spot on, after all it’s our only previous experience. What disturbs me is that the US is so fractured that we can’t unite around a very clear and present danger….The Republicans, who didn’t object to Vietnam, 2 wars in Iraq, and Afghanistan are suddenly concerned by a war that was started by an opponent. Did we help load the gun? Yes, but Putin, and only Putin, pulled the trigger. This is the key fact. Look at Sweden and Finland’s response- it says great deal…Switzerland has moved off their historical position a bit too.
OMG, who was driving the truck? Is this a suicide bombing? We need more information.
What happens if or when Putin withdraws from Ukraine, is defenstrated, or otherwise loses? I imagine the markets rip.
We think more about the downside risk from the war, but I think the upside risk is more likely.
Given that he chose partial mobilisation rather than “declaring victory and going home”, the idea that Putin will voluntary withdraw is unlikely.
Personally, I thought that was his best chance. Having screwed up the decapitation of Ukraine by seizing Kyiv in 2 days, losing the prolonged war and unable to drive a big enough wedge between Ukraine and its Western supporters, he ought to have given up and concentrate on regime survival.
With enough internal repression, I have little doubt he could have survived a defeat that had costed very few Russian conscripts lives.
But getting tens of thousands of Russian kids killed kind of commit him to victory or death… i.e. it raises the specter of nukes/chems being used.
One of the best counters to 9/11 conspiracists (this ties in nicely to your counter-narrative article), is that people who think it was a controlled demolition don’t understand reinforced concrete. The fact that Ukraine was able to pull this off is seriously impressive.
My favorite thing though is the pro-Russian mouthpiece calling Ukraine “Vandals.” If they knew their Roman history better, they’d be hesitant to assign such an inauspicious label to their foes.
hahahaha on the Vandals remark…
This is a wonderful article about how the partial destruction of the bridge is hitting the pro-war lobby in Russia. They are desperate for a ‘change’ where Russia starts winning and they expect Putin to provide it. If he can’t, the risks for him keep growing.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-october-9