The Chongar bridge, which connects the Crimean peninsula with Russian-occupied Ukraine by road, has two lanes, one going and the other coming back. This Thursday, after the visit of two Storm Shadow missiles (it seems that in its French version), both tracks had huge holes and serious structural damage. That is to say, perhaps this construction, vital for the Russian war effort, can continue to be used to move in a car (avoiding the gaps), but it seems impossible that a 50-ton armored vehicle can already cross it.
kyiv tries with this action to repeat the strategy that it carried out with the Antonovsky bridge of Kherson. That is, to prevent the Russians from using it to move their military equipment from one side of the Dnipro River to the other and forcing them to have to do it by ferry, with the logistical difficulty that this entails.
The Crimean peninsula has only two land routes to cross into occupied Ukraine. One is the aforementioned Chongar bridge, through which, until this Thursday, 70% of road traffic ran. The other is the Armiansk pass, which forces you to go through the Chaplynka route, continuously attacked by kyiv. What problem does this option present? That it is only 50 kilometers from the Ukrainian positions on the other side of the Dnipro River, which means that it is within range of the fearsome Himars missile launchers. What Ukraine has attacked is not just a bridge, it is a vitally important land corridor.
Another tangible conclusion of this attack is that this area is very poorly defended from Ukrainian air attacks. A few days ago, kyiv blew up a military base in Genichesk without opposition, in which it is estimated that at least 100 Russian soldiers could have died (there are no official figures).
With this campaign of remote attacks, Ukraine is once again compromising Russian logistics after having destroyed part of its railway network, thanks to sabotage, of the entire occupied area, especially the routes that reach Tormak, the authentic logistical hub of the war effort. Russian in Zaporizhia.
What now prevents Ukraine from attacking the Kersh bridge, that is, the only land route that connects the Crimean peninsula directly with mainland Russia? Let’s remember that he already did it last year and that, thanks to the delivery of long-range British and French missiles, he can try again.
In addition, the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, warned on Thursday of the possibility that Russia provokes some kind of action that looks like a “nuclear accident” to accuse Ukraine, as it did with the explosion of the Nova Kajovka dam. The Ukrainian leader warned, however, that radiation ends up “affecting those places where the wind takes it, since it has no borders.”
Regarding what happened on the front, fighting has resumed today in the Zaporizhia region, especially around the villages of Rinovpil and Robotine, a key point for Ukraine to continue advancing south. At the moment, although with many losses on both sides, Russia was trying to contain the attacks from Ukraine.
A few days ago there was talk that kyiv had stopped its attacks on an “operational pause” to rethink the strategy after the slow progress. On the ground, this is not appreciated, but an increase in the Ukrainian and Russian media, both aware that they are experiencing one of the decisive moments of the war. In any case, at least nine of the 12 new Ukrainian brigades created with Western material and trained by their allies have yet to appear. Only three of them have been seen in Zaporizhia and many analysts are speculating where Kiv may try to hit next.
In Donbas, Ukrainian troops continue to advance around the city of Bakhmut, or what is left of it, after eight months of fighting in which Russia ended up conquering the city after leaving tens of thousands dead in the effort. Ukraine threatens a vital highway, the E40. If it reaches that point, it would leave several companies deployed in neighboring Soledar isolated. To the south the movement is slower, but Kiev still hopes that the Russian resistance will give way at some point after the withdrawal of Wagner’s mercenaries and their replacement by soldiers from the Russian regular army, whose combat capacity is less.
In the Kherson region, Ukrainian special forces cross the river almost every night to carry out sabotage operations. The Russian blowing up of the dam now seems to be able to turn around those who caused it: the water has dropped so much in some areas that crossing the river has become easier than before.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
