Blyatskrieg

[lpm]

I wonder how many Russians have moved into occupied Crimea over the past few years, encouraged by the govt wanting Russification. And there's the insanity of Russians holidaying in Crimea.

Maybe the road is a better target than the rail. A road attack applies political pressure because that's what frightens the inhabitants. A rail attack applies military pressure because they need the supply. Maybe the political pressure is worth more at this stage.

[lpm]

Also, I wonder how paranoid Putin is. If it was a truck bomb travelling from Russia to Crimea then he might put 2+2 together and get 5...

[Grumble]

Also, I wonder how paranoid Putin is. If it was a truck bomb travelling from Russia to Crimea then he might put 2+2 together and get 5...

The Russians saying it was a truck bomb travelling to Crimea doesn’t make it true, of course, but let’s assume it is. Someone, in Russia, has loaded up a truck with a bomb, fertiliser perhaps, and driven through security. Perhaps security is more relaxed travelling in that direction? Either way it takes balls of steel. Was it a suicide bomb or a duped driver? There must be partisans or special forces working on Russian soil, probably a whole team. And where there’s one team there might be more.

[EACLucifer]

Now would be a good time to whack every crossing in range on the Taganrog-Kherson highway with everything that comes to hand.

[lpm]

I wonder how many Russians have moved into occupied Crimea over the past few years, encouraged by the govt wanting Russification. And there's the insanity of Russians holidaying in Crimea.

Maybe the road is a better target than the rail. A road attack applies political pressure because that's what frightens the inhabitants. A rail attack applies military pressure because they need the supply. Maybe the political pressure is worth more at this stage.

Population of Crimea before seizure by Russia: 2,350,000 million. Was approx 50% leaning pro-Russia, 50% pro-Ukraine.

This https://www.blackseanews.net/en/read/178035 suggests Russian migration to Crimea has taken it to over 3,000,000. Says main pulls:

- cheap mortgages for military families
- people retiring to the warmth and seaside from northern Russia and Siberia
- migrants escaping from endless war in Donetsk and Luhansk, particularly those who already had holiday flats in Crimea

People leaving Crimea obviously include persecuted people and those with pro-Ukraine leanings, but also Russian-leaning people (particularly young people) - residency in occupied Crimea prevents Russians from travelling to Europe, school diplomas etc aren't valid, other sanction effects.

The economy of Crimea in the last 8 years has been poor. Stagnation despite high investment by oligarchs, barracks lifestyle for military and their families, tower block living. A militarised state. I don't really know how this grimness compares to the grim-as-f.ck life people have in Russia.

(Of interest is one of the oligarchs who has invested heavily in a Crimea seaside resort. A nice man called Alexander Lebedev. Owner of Evening Standard and Independent, father of Evgeny Lebedev, and string puller of his puppet Boris Johnson.)

The outcome appears to be a population in occupied Crimea that is heavily weighted to military and their families (including other state security bureaus, civilian contractors etc), an ageing population and a pretty transient population. But it's also of very personal interest to Putin. Quite simply, they cannot afford to lose it to Ukraine and I think Russian leadership will make enormous sacrifices to retain it. A panicked population in Crimea translates directly to a political crisis in Moscow.

[Martin Y]

Summary of what can be gleaned from the videos. I agree that the explosion appears to have been above rather than below the bridge.
https://twitter.com/n_waters89/status/1 ... LTq7EnKHBw

It does seem to me the container lorry is most likely what's holding what was clearly a very large bomb. I suppose the bulk of the container's contents might have been fertiliser which would be unsuspicious but increase the damage. It was coming from the Russian mainland side so security might well be less, but it makes you wonder where the bomb could have been assembled and what the container's route was.

That two spans of road deck collapsed is I think just due to the drop of one span pulling on the surrounding roadway as it fell, and at a nearby expansion joint the section's end moved far enough to fall off the pier it rested on.

[Grumble]

Aside from anything else, it’s a weird bridge with that hill in the middle. Never seen anything like it. As you were.

[Martin Y]

It's not so unusual. Road deck rises in the middle to get over the part where ships can go under. Trains can't climb steep inclines so the rail line is higher than the road deck much earlier. Lower road deck is probably cheaper to build but also exposes road traffic to lower wind speeds than a higher and more exposed deck would.

[Bird on a Fire]

It's not so unusual. Road deck rises in the middle to get over the part where ships can go under. Trains can't climb steep inclines so the rail line is higher than the road deck much earlier. Lower road deck is probably cheaper to build but also exposes road traffic to lower wind speeds than a higher and more exposed deck would.

Yeah, Vasco da Gama (now Europe's longest non-exploded bridge) has an admittedly less dramatic hill on the Lisbon side to allow boat passage underneath. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama_Bridge

No rail though - the only rail crossing over the Tagus is on the lower deck of the other bridge (25 de Abril, formerly Salazar - the one that looks like Golden Gate), which was retrofitted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_de_Abril_Bridge

[EACLucifer]

Summary of what can be gleaned from the videos. I agree that the explosion appears to have been above rather than below the bridge.
https://twitter.com/n_waters89/status/1 ... LTq7EnKHBw

It does seem to me the container lorry is most likely what's holding what was clearly a very large bomb. I suppose the bulk of the container's contents might have been fertiliser which would be unsuspicious but increase the damage. It was coming from the Russian mainland side so security might well be less, but it makes you wonder where the bomb could have been assembled and what the container's route was.

That two spans of road deck collapsed is I think just due to the drop of one span pulling on the surrounding roadway as it fell, and at a nearby expansion joint the section's end moved far enough to fall off the pier it rested on.

Fertiliser explosions tend to have a sort of reddish cloud in the immediate aftermath, ie the Beirut blast.

The most likely missile candidate is thought to have a half-tonne warhead, which would likely be large enough to tear the sections of bridge off their supports. It's quite clear from one of the videos that it went at the expansion joint.

It's important to remember that this was a quickly built bridge, mostly pre-fab sections, but built for survivability as it has multiple separate roadways, separate rail viaduct. It's fairly clearly, especially with hindsight but even at the time, that it was built to enable further invasion of Ukraine. It's probably not the most robust bridge, though, as it is basically assembled from a kit.

[Martin Y]

If Ukraine has a large enough missile with that range then yes, that may be more plausible than a truck bomb. It might make the train a target of opportunity too if they had spotters near the bridge. The train was probably slow or even stationary as it doesn't appear to have moved after the explosion.

[EACLucifer]

If Ukraine has a large enough missile with that range then yes, that may be more plausible than a truck bomb. It might make the train a target of opportunity too if they had spotters near the bridge. The train was probably slow or even stationary as it doesn't appear to have moved after the explosion.

That's the big question. A little after the strikes on that airbase in Crimea, which had similar fireballs, General Zaluzhny wrote an essay that mentioned in passing that those strikes were done with missiles. Assuming he's telling the truth, then there is a missile with the correct range and striking power.

The leading candidate is Hrim-2, a missile that was in development before the escalation in February. This would have a range possibly around 500km, and a warhead around 500kg, with literature on the subject from before the escalation mentioning the possibility of a thermobaric warhead. That would fit what we saw at the airbase, and it fits what we've seen here - though of course it isn't the only thing that fits the evidence here, there are multiple possibilities. While people often think of thermobarics as incendiaries, their destructive force comes from the shockwave. At Dzhankoi, the shockwave was enough to throw a hangar roof truss horizontally through a car some distance from the blast. A shockwave like that could almost certainly lift a section of bridge off its piers.

This isn't the only Ukrainian weapon in development to possibly see service. The most famous example would be Neptune, which was not fully in service but evidently available in sufficient quantity to allow the successful attack on the cruiser Moskva. Other examples include the Vilkha, and Bohdana. The first is a domestic GMLRS derived from the Soviet era Smerch unguided MLRS. Reportedly all the available guided rockets were shot off in the first few days of the war. Bohdana, meanwhile, is a gun-howitzer on a truck chassis, conceptually very similar to the French CAESAR, and apparently only one example was produced. It was used successfully against Snake Island.

[Grumble]

Is it less damaging to Russia to claim that a bomb was driven onto the bridge *from Russia* than that Ukraine has long range missiles?

[Woodchopper]

They’ve driven some cars over it. Seems pretty precarious though.
https://twitter.com/itsartoir/status/15 ... YTL2MGLoNQ

[Woodchopper]

Is it less damaging to Russia to claim that a bomb was driven onto the bridge *from Russia* than that Ukraine has long range missiles?

Damaging in different ways for different factions. The people in charge of air defence would really like it to be a truck bomb.

[dyqik]

Is it less damaging to Russia to claim that a bomb was driven onto the bridge *from Russia* than that Ukraine has long range missiles?

Damaging in different ways for different factions. The people in charge of air defence would really like it to be a truck bomb.

And the mainstream military would like it be something that the FSB should have prevented.

[Martin Y]

Is it less damaging to Russia to claim that a bomb was driven onto the bridge *from Russia* than that Ukraine has long range missiles?

That's an interesting question. Capable, accurate missiles you self-evidently failed to stop are bad for national prestige and morale. A truck bomb implies foreign infiltrators, spies and traitors which aren't good either but are something the population could be whipped up into thinking there's something the ordinary citizen might do to help combat it. Of course whipping up a death to spies frenzy when the spies aren't real might bring problems of its own but on the upside it might well stifle "suspicious" dissent.

[EACLucifer]

They’ve driven some cars over it. Seems pretty precarious though.
https://twitter.com/itsartoir/status/15 ... YTL2MGLoNQ

The bit that really matters is the rail bridge. Russian logistics are very rail dependent, and they are very short of good trucks.

It could take hours, more likely days, possibly never to repair the rail section, but that's the bit that really matters.

If the strike was an SRBM, it could potentially be repeated. If it involved boats or trucks and deception, less so.

[lpm]

Now they've analysed it frame by frame, the video does appear to show something flashing bright while the truck still in frame and perfectly intact.

That rules out the truck. The poor bastard's home is being searched like he's an Al Qaeda terrorist.

And people who know seem to be ruling out a blast from below.

Which leaves the various missile possibilities outlined by EACL.

[Grumble]

Now they've analysed it frame by frame, the video does appear to show something flashing bright while the truck still in frame and perfectly intact.

That rules out the truck. The poor bastard's home is being searched like he's an Al Qaeda terrorist.

And people who know seem to be ruling out a blast from below.

Which leaves the various missile possibilities outlined by EACL.

Will they find a copy of the Sims?

[Martin Y]

Now they've analysed it frame by frame, the video does appear to show something flashing bright while the truck still in frame and perfectly intact.

That rules out the truck...

Interesting, though I assume "they" are the Russians, who presumably have access to more and better quality video that we've seen on twitter. Certainly that video looking down the length of the road doesn't capture that, but as it's presumably a phone pointed at a monitor it may well miss momentary stuff that's on the original recording.

[jimbob]

Now they've analysed it frame by frame, the video does appear to show something flashing bright while the truck still in frame and perfectly intact.

That rules out the truck...

Interesting, though I assume "they" are the Russians, who presumably have access to more and better quality video that we've seen on twitter. Certainly that video looking down the length of the road doesn't capture that, but as it's presumably a phone pointed at a monitor it may well miss momentary stuff that's on the original recording.

Why have they got a phone pointing at a monitor? Make it seem unofficial and true?

[Woodchopper]

Photo of the underside of the bridge. No sign of blast damage. Probably not a boat. https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/ ... YTL2MGLoNQ

[TimW]

No sign of blast damage.

Where is the blast damage? Apart from a few barriers, have I missed it?

[Woodchopper]

No sign of blast damage.

Where is the blast damage? Apart from a few barriers, have I missed it?

The top side of the road bridge looks pretty scorched on the satellite photograph. Much more than what we’ve seen of the underside.

https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/15788 ... OmOikodd7Q