Now that Moscow is setting up an alternative transport route, an attack on the Crimean Bridge seems mainly of symbolic value

Both symbolically and militarily, the Crimean Bridge is Ukraine’s most important target in the war against Russia. But the military importance of the nineteen-kilometer-long structure – as a traffic artery for the Russian army to occupied Crimea – has diminished in value in recent months: Moscow has built a new train connection that runs ‘along the top’, from the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don through occupied southern Ukraine towards Crimea.

With the new railway line, Russia is creating an alternative to the vulnerable bridge and the distance to the troops in occupied southern Ukraine has even been shortened by about two hundred kilometers. This also allows Moscow to supply its troops with weapons and ammunition more quickly.

The new rail connection that the Russians are building between the Russian border and Yakymivka near the occupied city of Melitopol consists of 63 kilometers of new track and approximately 140 kilometers of renewal of existing track.

Even though the new rail link is an easier target for the Ukrainian armed forces than the Crimean Bridge – if only because of the distance – repairing a railway is significantly easier than a kilometer-long bridge over a strait.

Serious problem

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, recently acknowledged that the new coastal railway line could pose “a serious problem” for Ukrainians. The Russians are said to have built the new railway across the ‘land bridge’ along the Sea of ​​Azov within a year.

The railway is part of a new route that Russian President Putin announced a few weeks ago: that line runs from Rostov-on-Don, via Mariupol and Berdiansk, to the port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, more than six hundred kilometers away. This railway, Putin said in March, “makes us significantly stronger.”

According to a recent analysis of satellite images by the British daily The Independent and the Ukrainian research agency Molfar, Moscow has not allowed trains carrying military supplies to run across the Crimean Bridge in the past three months. Exactly one military transport train with fuel wagons is said to have passed the bridge during that period.

The bridge from the Russian mainland to Kerch in Crimea is said to have been used much less for military transports since the last Ukrainian attack in July last year. In October 2022, the bridge suffered extensive damage in a massive explosion and a fire in a passing fuel train, also due to a Ukrainian attack. Part of the road surface collapsed and the railway line became unusable. The bridge was then closed for months for repairs.

Opened in 2018

The bridge from the Russian mainland to Kerch in Crimea was built after Russia’s invasion of the peninsula in 2014. The occupation is illegal under international law and all work on the bridge is subject to European sanctions. In 2018, the structure was opened by President Putin and the first cars drove over the bridge. A year later, the railway line over the bridge was also opened.

Since then, Moscow has used the bridge, among other things, to transport troops, weapons and ammunition to the peninsula. After the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the bridge became a crucial link for supplying the rapidly growing force in Crimea and the other occupied territories, especially the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.

Vasyl Malyuk of the Ukrainian security service said in March that until the latest Ukrainian attack, “42 to 46” Russian freight trains carrying ammunition and weapons crossed the railway bridge to Crimea every day. At the beginning of this year, that number had dropped to one freight train and four passenger trains per day. That reduction had to do with the constant threat of Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets in the Black Sea and on the peninsula.

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The Ukrainian government of President Volodymyr Zelensky has said several times during the war that the Crimean Bridge is a military target and that the structure must be “neutralized.” Zelensky last year called the bridge “an enemy facility built unlawfully, outside international law and all applicable standards.”

Attack on Crimean Bridge

In recent weeks, speculation has been abuzz about a new Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge. This should coincide with the inauguration of President Putin last Tuesday or with the celebration of Russia’s Victory Day on May 9. That day Moscow commemorates the defeat of the Germans in World War II. This is how the Ukrainian UN Ambassador Sergi Kyslytsja posted https://twitter.com/SergiyKyslytsya/status/1785762846392926597 showing six types of bridges; only the Crimean Bridge is invisible.

Despite several attempts with naval drones and explosives, Ukraine has so far failed to destroy the bridge. The Crimean Bridge is one of the reasons why the Ukrainian armed forces are eagerly awaiting the delivery of the German Taurus, a long-range missile that, thanks to a double explosive charge, can penetrate several layers of concrete before exploding. That would make this missile the ideal weapon for an attack on the bridge’s pillars. However, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz refuses to deliver the missile to Ukraine, fearing an escalation of the war.

The Russians have built extensive defenses in the waters around the Crimean Bridge in recent years, including to defend the structure against Ukrainian maritime drones. The bridge is also regularly shrouded in thick clouds of smoke when it is suspected that a Ukrainian attack is imminent.

The fact that the Russians are about to use an alternative transport route through southern Ukraine is a blow for Kyiv. Last year’s summer offensive was partly intended to prevent Russia from continuing to use the ‘land bridge’ to Crimea. Kyiv hoped to cut off that land connection through the occupied south. But the Ukrainian offensive foundered after several months on the deep defense lines of minefields and other obstacles that Russia had built along the front lines.

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