“Bomb Ukraine back to the 18th century,” said Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament after the spectacular attack on the Crimean Bridge. But the war in Ukraine has already proved that Russia has little left to fight back with. Nuclear bombs have been threatened more than once, but Vladimir Putin, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Friday, takes a different approach: he downplays what happened.
There is nothing wrong, the bridge is only damaged, is the message from the Kremlin this weekend. On Sunday there will even be a report that the trains will be running again (‘according to the timetable’, according to a cheerful Russian announcement). The car bridge is also only half broken – the other half can still be used and will also be ‘commissioned’ again on Sunday, the Russian Ministry of Transport reports.
The images of the explosion, the stretches of roadway hanging in the water and the fuel train engulfed in flames create a different impression on Saturday morning. According to information from the British Ministry of Defense, traffic over the bridge is ‘seriously hampered’, and according to Scottish professor of Strategic Studies Phillips O’Brien, the robustness of the bridge will only have to be seen if the bridge is not empty but full. The Crimean Bridge is of vital logistical importance. It is the main supply line for weapons and fuel for Russian troops fighting in southern Ukraine.
Truck
The Kremlin is also quick to disseminate the claim that no Ukrainian missile hit here, but that a truck filled with explosives, driven by a man from Azerbaijan, caused the destruction. Russian media spread a plethora of videos and photos of the unmarked white truck being scanned and inspected before entering the bridge.
It is no more than a terrorist attack as they often occur in Russia, is the message. It should be argued that suicide attacks are extremely rare. In Western media, all messages are passed on, with words like ‘should’, ‘possibly’ and ‘according to the Russian state news agency TASS’.
Doubts about the Russian version of the story, as it had a global presence after the Russian flagship Moskva was sunk, is largely confined to social media this time around. There is speculation about mysterious boats near the bridge and about secretly placed explosives. There is also talk of Ukrainian/American artillery that would have fired a heavy precision grenade on the bridge. A round hole in the broken road surface would indicate that, Chuck Pfarrer, a former US Navy Seal, says on Twitter: “It has all the hallmarks of an attack with a HIMARS.”
However, that is a version of reality that does not suit the Russians in particular. The Crimean Bridge was considered one of the most heavily guarded objects in the war. It shouldn’t be able to be hit by missiles at all, and Ukraine shouldn’t be able to either. Moreover, a Ukrainian missile attack would have to be answered with a lot of force, and in that case it might turn out that Russia has no strong answer left at all – or it would have to be a nuclear missile.
civic goals
Russia is doing what it has been doing since February 24: instead of spectacular action against Ukraine, it indulges in new rocket attacks on civilian targets. The city of Zaporizhzhya was particularly hard hit on Saturday. Multiple rockets hit an apartment building and homes there, killing at least 17 people.
Zaporizhzhya is the capital of one of four Ukrainian territories that Putin illegally declared Russian territory last month with the stroke of a pen. However, the city of Zaporizhzhya is still in Ukrainian hands, and is therefore constantly harassed by Russia. At least 60 people have been killed in the last 9 days. On Thursday alone, 14 people were killed in the shelling. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of “merciless attacks on peaceful people,” and spoke of Russia’s “absolute evil” and “absolute evil.”
Fifty kilometers from the city of Zaporizhzhya, in the middle of the war zone, is the Russian-owned Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. The Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom announced on Friday that the plant has been disconnected from the power grid. Since then, the power for cooling has only been supplied by diesel generators, which would have diesel for a maximum of ten days. In recent weeks, the main streamlining of the power plant has been broken and repaired several times. If the nuclear power plant is no longer cooled, a nuclear disaster threatens. According to Ukraine, Russia is using the plant as a nuclear threat.
jokes
Ukraine has not directly claimed the attack on the Crimean Bridge, Putin’s ‘crown jewel’. Al quotes The Washington Post an anonymous “official” who says the Ukrainian secret service is behind it. Ukraine openly laughs at the huge stunt. President Zelensky joked on messaging app Telegram on Saturday about how beautiful the weather is in Ukraine and how warm, and that “the future will look even brighter when all the occupiers will have left the country.”
The Ukrainian internet is teeming with jokes, such as Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to Putin next to a photo of the explosion, or Putin himself counting: “One… two… three!” after which the bridge explodes. It turns out that a Ukrainian postage stamp has even been designed in the vein of the stamp that celebrates the sinking of the Russian flagship Moskva. In Kyiv, the ‘seal with the bridge’ is in large format, so Ukrainians can take a selfie with it.