Within hours of a explosion that damaged the sole bridge Linking Crimea to Russia early Saturday, hardline military bloggers and Russian officials were calling for a quick and strong response from Moscow.
A senior politician said any response short of “extremely tough” would show the weakness of the Kremlin, which is facing continued losses on the battlefield and growing criticism at home.
For President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who presided over the bridge’s opening in 2018, the explosion appeared to be a highly personal affront, underscoring his inability to control a relentless series of Ukrainian attacks.
Some media commentators demanded that Russia destroy Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure and transportation systems used to import Western weaponry.
Evgeny Poddubny, a war correspondent for state media RT, said no one in the Ukrainian leadership seemed to fear Russia anymore.
“The enemy is no longer afraid and this circumstance must be corrected as soon as possible,” he wrote on RT’s Telegram channel. “The commanders of formations, the heads of intelligence agencies, the politicians of the Kyiv criminal regime sleep peacefully, wake up without a headache and in a good mood, without the feeling of the inevitability of punishment for the crimes committed.”
Two outside lanes
collapsed here.
Various tank cars
of a train could be
watching it burn here.
Two outside lanes
collapsed here.
Various tank cars
of a train could be
watching it burn here.
Aleksandr Kots, a war correspondent for the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote on Telegram that disabling the bridge bodes ill for Moscow’s already troubled efforts to hold territory in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, and most likely portends a future attack on Crimea itself.
He described the “coherence” Ukraine was showing in the war as “enviable” and called on Russia to “hammer Ukraine into the 18th century, without mindlessly reflecting on how this will affect the civilian population.”
While there were no official claims of responsibility, Ukrainian officials, who in the past have said the bridge would be a legitimate target for an attack, said the blast was no accident and made no secret of their delight.
“Crimea, the bridge, the beginning,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the president of Ukraine, in a post on twitter on Saturday. “Everything illegal must be destroyed. Everything stolen returned to Ukraine. All Russian occupiers expelled.”
The explosion is emblematic of a Russian army in disarray. Russian forces failed to protect the road and rail junction despite its centrality to the war effort, its personal importance to Putin, and the potent symbolism of it as the literal connection between Russia and Crimea.
For Russia, the rail crossing “has played a key role in moving heavy military vehicles to the southern front during the invasion,” the British defense intelligence agency said. wrote in his daily evaluation on Sunday. He added that while the extent of the damage to the railway was uncertain, “any serious disruption to its capacity will most likely have a significant impact on Russia’s already strained ability to maintain its forces in southern Ukraine.”
Two of the four lanes of the roadway “have collapsed in various places” over a stretch of approximately 250 meters, according to the report.
Hours after the blast, the Kremlin appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin, another new commander, to oversee its forces in Ukraine. Past leadership shakeups have done little to correct the military’s faltering performance.
General Surovikin, 55, has long had a reputation for corruption and brutality, military analysts said.
“He’s known as a pretty ruthless commander who is short with his subordinates and is known for his temper,” said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a Virginia-based defense research institute.
His appointment was quickly praised by some of the war’s biggest supporters, including Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group that was heavily deployed in Syria. He made a rare public endorsement of the general, calling him “legendary.”