The War in the Ukraine

Overbom said:

Are we going to pretend that the Crimean Bridge is not a military target which serves as a crucial military logistic node which keeps supplying the Russians in their attack against Ukraine?
Seems like a stretch to me.

If you said that about a random road or bridge in the middle of nowhere in Russia I would agree with you. However the Crimean bridge is a key enabler for Russian troops which thus makes it perfectly acceptable to be targeted and destroyed

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No one said it wasn’t a legitimate military target, but similarly no one can deny a suicide VBIED attack isn’t a terrorist tactic.

One easy and clear cut way to distinguish between legitimate military attack and terrorist attack is whether the Geneva convention allows for the attackers to be shot on the spot if caught.

Overbom said:

Yeah, from the photos we have, the roads' surface seems pretty much unharmed. So this means that the sabotage charges were on the pillars of the structure

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All I can say is Biden would have to be extra specially stupid to green light a UUV bomb (which is the only way an underwater attack can happen as it would be suicide for Seals or manned subs to try) after Nord Stream, since such an attack on the Crimea bridge would stretch even the brainwashed western masses’ ability to suspend reality.

plawolf said:

No one said it wasn’t a legitimate military target, but similarly no one can deny a suicide VBIED attack isn’t a terrorist tactic.

One easy and clear cut way to distinguish between legitimate military attack and terrorist attack is whether the Geneva convention allows for the attackers to be shot on the spot if caught.

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Driving a truck bomb to blow up civilians and/or civilian infrastructure far from the frontlines is completely different and just going full ISIS since the objective is take lives, not save them.

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You implied that this attack's objective was just about to "take lives". If they needed to do that (and I am sure they want to do it), they could just blow up an exhibition or a theater or a shopping center or whatever.

However the attack is on the Crimean bridge. Why.. From the video, I only saw a couple of cars and the fuel train above. So how many people, 10, 15?

That's nothing, obviously the objective of the attack was of military nature. That is, to disable/degrade the Russian military southern front's logistics. This is why I responded to you that this attack is "fair" (Nevermind that fair or unfair, international law, doesn't exist in a war but lets skip that for the sake of the discussion)

plawolf said:

All I can say is Biden would have to be extra specially stupid to green light a UUV bomb (which is the only way an underwater attack can happen as it would be suicide for Seals or manned subs to try) after Nord Stream, since such an attack on the Crimea bridge would stretch even the brainwashed western masses’ ability to suspend reality.

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Obviously the Americans had their hand in this. Unless Russia retaliates, of course the Americans will continue doing similar things.

The US blew up NS1 and NS2, did Russia retaliate? No. Then why should the US keep its hand, it might as well as go on a rampage until Russia responds in a similar manner. Plenty of pipelines and bridges that Putin could order to take out, the real question is, why he hasn't given the order to do so?

So someone pointed out the water disturbance under the road bridge moments before explosion..

Is it possible a larger version of a drone boat or submersible craft?

I remember this washing up and not a big fuss came of it.

FairAndUnbiased said:

If Russia isn't buying from Jilin-1 which uses real imaging satellites with telescopes and aren't little cubesats, there is no wonder they can't keep up.

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I dont think satellite can deal with small teams. Saudis have all that and dense concentration of military power and still things were attacked all the way to Abu dhabi. They will repair the bridge and move one. They had ferries before this bridge and its off season now.

plawolf said:

No one said it wasn’t a legitimate military target, but similarly no one can deny a suicide VBIED attack isn’t a terrorist tactic.

One easy and clear cut way to distinguish between legitimate military attack and terrorist attack is whether the Geneva convention allows for the attackers to be shot on the spot if caught.

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It's only terrorism if it's not state based, no one would call Chinese militia blowing up railway during WW2 acts of terrorism, even if it was at the cost of their own lives.

Either way, discussing whether this is an act of terrorism is unproductive and pointless, I'd much rather the discussion be about the strategic implications that this might cause.

Crimea could be fully cut off if Kherson offensive is successful due to this and the apparant fragility of the Kerch bridge does not help with that assessment either. This might cause Russia to commit the reservists earlier than they would like, sending barely trained troops against some of Ukraine's best.

This was the Russian Navy or Coast Guard responsibility.

tankphobia said:

It's only terrorism if it's not state based, no one would call Chinese militia blowing up railway during WW2 acts of terrorism, even if it was at the cost of their own lives.

Either way, discussing whether this is an act of terrorism is unproductive and pointless, I'd much rather the discussion be about the strategic implications that this might cause.

Crimea could be fully cut off if Kherson offensive is successful due to this and the apparant fragility of the Kerch bridge does not help with that assessment either. This might cause Russia to commit the reservists earlier than they would like, sending barely trained troops against some of Ukraine's best.

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Afaik most reserves will not necessarily go to Ukraine. Instead, they will go to NATO borders and replace the active duty Russian army that is usually there. Reserves with special skills might go to Ukraine.

In all, the strategical picture isn't really changed as Russia would still use ROROs or the newly conquered land bridge for larger deliveries. But there will be an increased sense urgency, and possible martial law on border provinces.

Russia has shown to only really have intelligence about stationary targets and their volume of bombing is not nearly high enough. The only way for them in the short term is to find tons of men and physically plug the occupied areas with patrols, because they don't have the satellites or planes to do recon from the air.

To regain initiative they need either to negotiate a big ass military aid package from China (very humiliating given the gung ho attitude they had towards their own military independence) or do at least 1 full round of conscription equivalent to 1 of Ukraine's 6 rounds. The latter obviously leading to many Russian losses on par with what the AFU gets.

tankphobia said:

Either way, it is hilarious that Ukrainians have been hammering the Kherson bridge for months with it still standing and the brand new Kerch bridge was rendered inoperable in a single attack.

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That’s because HIMARS is a very poor weapon to take out a bridge with. Its warhead is not even a 100kg and its precision is not such that makes it easy to hit a support column, unlike a laser guided bomb.

SolarWarden said:

This was the Russian Navy or Coast Guard responsibility.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1578636594764189697

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If it was a drone boat, you'd see a huge pillar of water due to explosion. It is either pre-planted bombs on the anchoring bridge pillars, a suicide bombing or just extreme coincidence. However, if it is suicide bombing, then one may wonder how such a truck filled with at least several tons of explosives got through completely undetected?