Both Ukrainians and Russians were astounded by the size and cleverness of the attack on the Kerch bridge leading to Crimea, and analysts are still unsure of who was behind it and how it was carried out.
Though their conclusions are not definitive, military analysts and experts have proposed a number of theories regarding what caused Saturday’s explosion on the 12-mile road and rail link to the peninsula annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014. These theories range from a truck bomb to an underwater attack.
According to publicly available information, it is still too early to determine the exact cause of the explosion, according to NR Jenzen-Jones, an armaments and munitions specialist at Armament Research Services.
Since the bridge was one of Putin’s trademark infrastructure projects, Ukrainians have been obsessed with it. Viktor Andrusiv, a consultant at Kyiv’s interior ministry until July, claimed to have participated in a task group with the military to look into effective ways to eliminate it.
Andrusiv, who has been calling for months for the bridge to be demolished publicly, said, “It’s not an easy task, not at all. “It’s an object that is very well protected from the air, the water, and the land.”
The Crimean Bridge
the longest in Europe, connects Russia and Crimea across the Kerch Strait and was constructed by Russia at a cost of about US$3.7 billion after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 19-kilometer connection has also developed into a crucial military asset for Russian supplies and telecommunications. It is an essential artery for commercial and social connections.
Contrary to its name, the Crimean Bridge consists of two bridges: a road bridge and a rail bridge. The rail bridge supports two ballasted rail tracks whereas the road bridge consists of two separate bridge components all by itself.
Online resources include some general bridge drawings and details.
The incident
The area that was attacked is located halfway between Tuzla Island and Kerch, Crimea, on an east-west axis, above the main arch span of the navigable river. Currently, the rail and road bridges have a similar design and span around 64 metres. They are referred to as “composite slab orthotropic deck steel plate girder bridges.” This indicates that there is a 3.2 metre deep steel plate girder supporting a 20 centimetre thick concrete slab that was cast upon flat steel plates and strengthened with steel ribs.
The impact of the blast and inferno, as well as the following repair and potential safety of the structure, are all highly dependent on the type of construction, so it is crucial to understand this.
the aftereffects
One bridge split in half due to the explosion. The adjacent span on the Crimean side was still standing but was knocked off course and fell into the water as well. The following bridge over on the Tuzla side broke off its far bearings, but a third span is still standing.
With expansion joints only every four spans, it looks that the girders are continuous over the piers. The immense vertical force caused by the explosion would draw in the ends of the continuous steel girders, popping them off their supports, much like lifting up a tablecloth in the centre.
What has Putin’s reaction been?
In retaliation, Russia launched what seemed to be its largest round of missile and rocket attacks since Moscow launched the conflict.
The Russian president accused Ukraine for the Kerch bridge attack in a televised speech on Monday, calling it an act of terrorism, and promised additional strikes if attacks against Russia persisted.
He claimed that as retribution, Russia has attacked Ukraine’s energy, military, and communications infrastructure in large-scale with long-range weapons.
In response to any other terrorist acts committed on Russian soil, Putin vowed that Russia will respond harshly and commensurately with the level of threat posed to the Russian Federation.
On Monday, several Ukrainian cities came under fire, with Russia appearing to target residential areas and energy facilities. The Ukrainian authorities warned citizens to prepare for potential rolling blackouts and water supply outages.
In the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, explosions during morning rush hour caused locals to run to subterranean bomb shelters for the first time in months, resulting in at least five fatalities.
Additional injuries were reported in the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast after an apartment building was destroyed by a Russian missile strike.
And in Dnipro, a city in central Ukraine that has housed refugees fleeing the front lines since the war started, a barrage of missiles killed and injured people, upsetting any sense of relative safety.
