It’s hard to overstate the impact of the bombing of the Kerch bridge. Opened four years ago to great fanfare, the 12-mile long bridge came to embody Vladimir Putin’s claim on conquered Crimea. It symbolised his ability to protect and supply the area and reunify the ‘Russian world’ (Russkiy mir).
At about 6am local time, just after Putin celebrated his 70th birthday, CCTV footage shows a huge explosion ripping through both the rail and road bridge. Parts of the road bridge have collapsed into the sea, destroying two of its four lanes. It has since reopened to some passenger traffic and plans to reopen to trains, but not to trucks – which suggests its substructure has been damaged too much to allow military use.
Russian state media is reporting that a supposedly explosive-filled truck filmed driving towards the blast on CCTV is responsible – the TASS news agency has said that the owner of the truck has been traced to the Russian region of Kuban’. It added that the explosion was all the worse because the truck “set fire to seven fuel tanks from the train that was on the railway part of the train.” Some Western analysts have, however, suggested that the force of the explosion indicates something more powerful was used.
This attack now raises the obvious question about how Putin will respond and whether he will deploy his nuclear arsenal
Ukraine has yet to come out and claim it – its secret service has published a taunting Tweet but so far there has been nothing from Zelensky. This leaves open the possibility that this was a self-inflicted strike by Russia, a so-called ‘false flag’ attack to facilitate an escalation of the conflict. Strikingly, the Kremlin and the Russian state media have so far refrained from blaming Kyiv, simply calling it an ‘act of terrorism’. This runs contrary to almost every other incident in the war so far, with the Kremlin using every opportunity to twist the narrative away from itself as the aggressor.
But then again, Ukraine usually delays its announcements – it claimed the responsibility for major explosions in Russian military bases in Crimea weeks after they happened. The same was true with the destruction of Moskva, the Russian warship bombed earlier this year.
That the Russian state media has chosen to report on this incident at all demonstrates how significant it is. In recent weeks, the media has more openly been reporting and commenting on Russian war losses, hinting at the frustration felt domestically by the disastrous course of Putin’s war. It suggests that to ignore the Kerch bridge explosion would have caused further damage. Nevertheless, independent Russian news site Meduza has claimed that the Kremlin has issued instructions to state outlets to downplay the incident: the bridge has been ‘damaged’ not ‘destroyed’.
The Russian war effort has been severely impacted by the loss of the Kerch bridge. It had become one of just two railroads transporting supplies and troops to the Ukrainian front. With it now destroyed, and against the background of an increasing number of Russia territorial losses, the pressure is on Putin’s army to keep control of Melitopol and the railway that runs through it to keep supply routes to the Front open.
Alongside this railway, the logistics of the Russian army’s entire southern group depends on keeping control of the M14 road running from Mariupol on the Russian border, through Melitopol, to Kherson. There are no other routes left open to them. The clincher, of course, is that Melitopol itself is already within range of Ukrainian attacks.
Ukraine had, for the past few months, made its intention clear to strike the bridge if given the chance. Russia had assumed the Kerch bridge was beyond their reach but threatened reprisals if it was hit.
This attack now raises the obvious question about how Putin will respond and whether this is the event that could trigger the deployment of his nuclear arsenal. The State Duma has just declared the attack a ‘declaration of a war without rules’, while military politicians and commentators are already demanding a solid response from the Kremlin – to not do so ‘would conclusively prove we are weak’. Pro-Putin Duma politician Sergei Mironov called for an end of the ‘special military operation’: ‘It’s time to FIGHT!’
In a statement, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that there was currently no timeline for when the bridge would be restored and fully reopened. While the road bridge has now partially reopened (one lane was undamaged), all trains to Crimea are currently suspended and a ferry service between Russia and Crimea is being set up instead. The absence of a Stakhanovite declaration to rebuild the bridge as soon as possible hasn’t gone unnoticed. Crimean officials have also confirmed they are working on opening a land corridor to the territory through the ‘new region’ of Kherson, illegally annexed to Russia just last week.
Putin has reportedly set up an investigation committee to find out what happened, and a criminal investigation has been launched. After initially denying that there had been any casualties in the explosion, the investigation committee has now announced three bodies have been found, presumably, they say, passengers travelling on the bridge when the blast occurred.
The response from the Kremlin so far has been surprisingly muted: Putin himself is yet to release a statement; there has been little rhetoric from officials baying for Ukrainian blood in retaliation. By contrast, it seems the mood in Crimea is one of panic. The Crimean authorities have moved to reassure residents that the peninsula has 55-days worth of supplies (the Kerch bridge also brought in commercial foodstock). They have also had to squash excitable rumours that rationing in supermarkets might be introduced. Tourists who want to leave have been promised that they will be ferried back to Russia by boat, and queues several miles long have begun to form at petrol pumps.
It is tempting to see the Kremlin’s reaction as a tacit recognition by Russia that it is losing the war with Ukraine, but with Putin, one shouldn’t be so sure. The calls by pro-war commentators within Russia to turn the ‘special military operation’ into a full-blown war indicates that Putin will find himself under pressure to respond in a way that satisfies any potential dissent. That this incident isn’t, or won’t be, used by Russia to escalate the conflict cannot be ruled out.
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