He faces several weeks of strategic decisions to make on the Russian occupation of southern Ukraine. All this presence was already poorly supplied, managed and in retreat. And it shows that the key rail route to Crimea and to the front lines in Kherson is highly vulnerable to future attacks. While Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the Kerch Strait bridge explosion, it has previously taken credit for a series of attacks on targets in Russian-occupied Crimea over the summer. This Planet Labs satellite image shows a plume of smoke after an explosion caused the partial collapse of a bridge linking the Crimean peninsula with Russia, damaging a key supply artery for the faltering war effort from the Kremlin in southern Ukraine. Saturday, October 8, 2022. (AP)
Russian officials said a limited amount of car traffic had resumed on undamaged sections of the bridge’s roads by Saturday evening and that train services would resume on the bridge’s tracks. But trucks are being asked to take ferries across the strait, state media reported.
Bad weather ferry crossings or very dangerous air cargo flights may now be needed to bolster military shipments to Crimea and to the front lines, putting more pressure on a single rail line further east that runs through Melitopol along the coast of the Sea of Azov.
Ukrainian soldiers embrace as Russians retreat
It exposes the astonishing 20th century weakness of Russia’s armed forces and occupation: they need railroads to get around.
Ukraine has been targeting this system with slow and patient precision. First Izium, which caused the collapse around Kharkiv. Then Lyman, which is leading to the erosion of Russian control of Donetsk and Luhansk. And now the Kerch Bridge, which had become so vital to everything Russia is trying to hold on to in the south.
Flame and smoke rise from the Crimean Bridge connecting the Russian mainland and the Crimean peninsula over the Kerch Strait, in Kerch, Crimea, Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022. (AP)
Compounding the problem for Putin is the fact that Russia’s innermost railway hub of Donetsk was also hit on Saturday; a look at Ilovaisk on a map shows the rail arteries running through it. A freight train detonated there this morning, likely impacting Russia’s ability to feed rail lines within Donetsk and Luhansk that Ukraine has already put under heavy pressure.
Ukraine has been patient in reaching these pressure points. They have not struck until they have seen a moment of weakness – until the Russians are already experiencing serious problems – to ensure that the damage inflicted lasts while time-consuming repairs are carried out. (While Russia claims rail traffic was restored Saturday night, the bridge’s vulnerability to attack will at least reduce traffic.)
A challenge to Putin’s poker face
Putin now faces a series of accelerated and painful decisions, all of which will severely belie his poker face of pride and bombast toward the signs of slow defeat. West of the Dnipro River, his army in Kherson is besieged by fast-moving Ukrainian forces. They are already in retreat, partly due to the same deficient resupply that will be accentuated with the explosion of Kerch.
Once again they are cut off from this faltering supply line by another series of damaged or targeted bridges across the Dnipro. In the last week, they have already retreated more than 500 square kilometers. Can Moscow sustain this force on two damaged supply routes? A precarious presence may have become almost impossible overnight. Is enough truth seeping into the Kremlin chief to force him to step down? Or does he take the higher stake of spreading his isolated forces over a wide expanse?
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows damage to the Kerch Bridge, which connects the Crimean peninsula to Russia across a strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and railway cars set on fire on Saturday, October 8 of 2022. (Maxar Technologies via AP) (AP)
The second decision point concerns Crimea. Putin personally opened the bridge across the Kerch Strait driving a truck in 2018. The illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory has been a source of misguided pride and imperial pomp for the Kremlin. But Putin now faces the difficult choice of further strengthening it with depleted forces facing resupply problems, or partially withdrawing his army to ensure his important resources on the peninsula are not cut off .
There is a significant risk of this. The Kerch bridge can be hit again. The rail link through Melitopol is now a high value target. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that an offensive from Zaporizhzhia towards Melitopol was a possibility. The mere possibility that Russia’s last untouched rail route to the south could be disrupted poses existential problems for its occupation.
Russian authorities say a truck bomb has caused a fire and the collapse of a section of a bridge linking Russia’s annexed Crimea with Russia. (AP)
Putin must choose between fueling his larger ambitions with a diminishing chance of success, or consolidating forces around a goal he has a better chance of achieving. One carries the risk of a catastrophic collapse, throughout his brutal adventure in Ukraine, and quite possibly his government. The second leaves him with an immediate loss of face, but with a better chance of maintaining the occupation of smaller parts of Ukraine.
His domestic position has not looked weaker since he came to power in 2000. Admitting failure can be unpalatable at this stage, and an easier bigger bet is movement. However, it tilts the war back into a binary moment where its occupation, and even the regime, faces either complete collapse or a slim, insane prospect of victory. Nuclear threats and rhetoric have been the horrific backdrop to this war. Still, Moscow has not resorted to any doomsday moves as NATO arms Ukraine to an extent that was unthinkable before the war.
Kyiv’s smart and patient strikes against Russia’s aging transport dependencies have left Putin with a series of existential decisions to make in the coming hours. He’s done a lot of bad things in the last seven months. Does the Kerch explosion add to that list, or does it provide a cold shower of reality and a realignment of the Kremlin’s view of the possible?