UKR also seems to have struck at the only other rail line for southern Ukraine today [0,1]. If true, then the only supply route to Kherson and Crimea is the M14 highway and the one lane of the Kerch bridge. The M14 is problematic at it runs through areas of high UKR partisan activity. The one last lane on the Kerch bridge is also not likely to last long if it is going to be used as a main supply hub for all of RU operations, not only due to UKR strikes, but just normal wear and tear in winter. Supplying via sea is also a no-go as we saw with the sinking of the Moskova and the strikes against RU airbases in Crimea.
There is likely no workable method of supply or reinforcement for RU forces in southern Ukraine this winter.
If it was a truck bomb, it would had to have been a suicide bomber, but I have doubts. Observe the small car that was just going past in the opposing lane at the instant of the explosion. It kept going and you can see it driving toward the camera. If it had been next to such a large truck bomb, it would have been blown off the road.
This recent tweet has by far the clearest footage of the aftermath, shot in daylight from the edge of the destroyed bridge deck; the actual extent of the destruction isn't fully apparent until the end.
Honestly somewhat surprised there isn't a Russian information blackout on this since it seems to me like a major logistic setback.
Yes, you can get “cantilevering”. When you remove the structural support at one part of the span, the segments of the span will react to their static gravity loading and this can cause them to flex and/pivot depending on their rigidity. You get one side pulled down by it’s weight which will then lift up the over side and a lot of bridges are not designed for a tension load lifting the bridge deck up, this can cause secondary failure points away from the primary damage and you can definitely see this effect if you look at photos/videos of other bridge failures.
I saw people arguing that the explosion must have come from below (eg a boat) because parts of the damaged doad deck had been lifted off the spherical bearings of the supporting piers/pylons. Is it possible this could also be attributable to the 'tension load lifting the deck up'?
That’s also an important thing a lot of people don’t think of! The kinetics of lightweight materials in the vicinity of an event like an explosion or other violent events is quite surprising. It often masks the underlying prevailing forces because the more visible things obscure our view.
Also, while some people on the bridges almost certainly died in the explosions, there's no actual gore (or any visible people at all, really) in the videos.
A couple months ago an interesting video in youtube covered extensively why, being such strategical route this had not happened yet in seven months of war. Destroying the bridge was a major priority for the Ukrainian army.
The situation has changed. With the North route cut, moving an hypothetical tactical nuclear bomb to Crimea or refresh troops is now much more difficult and dangerous. Supporting logistically the current Crimean troops with food or winter clothes is also much more expensive now
> moving an hypothetical tactical nuclear bomb to Crimea or refresh troops is now much more difficult and dangerous
Eh, no, unfortunately not. Moving small numbers of small things is still easy. The big impact that this attack had is that moving lots and lots of very heavy things suddenly gets a lot harder.
I was of the believe that Ukraine did not explode that bridge yet because they would not benefit from it. My thinking went as follows: A.) breaking it would make the land bridge they are fighting the Russians for much more valuable, therefore the Russians would invest more resources to doing so, B.) Breaking it might cut off the escape route for Crimean civilians and therefore turn them against the Ukrainians. C.) The bridge was expensive and in some far future they would probably like to make use of it themselves.
Of course that bridge is in a sense both military and civilian infrastructure, so it might just be, that we reached a moment where the points mentioned above no longer outweighed the military/logistcal disadvantage the Ukrainians gained from letting it unharmed.
Of course another possibility would be that they just were not able to attack it successfully before and this was the first attempt that worked. In that case however we might have noticed some of the bodged attempts.
> Of course another possibility would be that they just were not able to attack it successfully
That was the official version of the Ukrainian side.
> A.) breaking it would make the land bridge they are fighting the Russians for much more valuable, therefore the Russians would invest more resources to doing so,
But it would make those Russians fighting there a nightmare to supply (and as we've seen, Russia logistics suck even without obstacles such as a big bodies of water), which will weaken their resistance.
> B.) Breaking it might cut off the escape route for Crimean civilians and therefore turn them against the Ukrainians.
Many already run away when Ukraine started hitting targets in Crimea, so it's safe to assume the rest don't want to evacuate.
> C.) The bridge was expensive and in some far future they would probably like to make use of it themselves.
Ukraine won't have a need for a Crimea - Russia land bridge in the foreseeable future, considering how long it will take for relations to be fully repaired.
I think the three points might have held some truth in an earlier phase of the war. Now that the Ukrainians gained some ground in Lyman (important logistical train hub in the east), the advantages of cutting off the bridge might have multiplied.
In hindsight cutting the east train hub first and then cutting the bridge certainly seems to be the better strategical order of operations than the other way around.
I am not that person but Trent Telenko is a retired DoD logistics guy who is active on Twitter and gives exhaustively detailed analysis, so I expect he'll write about it at length in the next day or two. He's unabashedly pro NATO/Ukraine so you should keep that bias in mind, but I've found his posts consistently illuminating since the outset of the conflict.
My immediate impression of the aftermath was that the collapse of the road deck looked very much like the failure of the San Francisco Bay Bridge following the 1989 earthquake, which was fixed in a month (which seems like lightning speed by today's standards).
I believe it's in military logistics, specifically in the non-tracked land vehicle (trucks) department for the US Army in the 1990's and 2000's. At least that's based on what I've read of him and his personal history that he has talked about online. I'm not sure about his specific unit though as I don't have his resume.
His thread on Russian tire maintenance took off like wildfire, and his Twitter fame got a little into his head. He suffers from the very known effect of narrow experts "expanding" their opinions to fields they have no business in. Just look at Elon Musk.
That said - Telenko's logistics and transport takes are valid - anything else, just know where that's coming from.
I think he was just pointing out that Trent is pro-NATO/Ukraine and is not really an impartial source of news/information. Don't think he was implying anything wrong with it.
I mean he might emphasize Russian failings and avoid talking much about their logistic successes, and likewise I assume he's circumspect about Ukrainian shortcomings in public. Just don't expect pure impartiality. I am also biased in favor of Ukraine.
Two lawyers can argue different sides of a case with the same set of facts. These arguments will be completely different based on what side of the case they are arguing. That's why it is important to know the bias of the person you are listening to and make sure you hear the arguments from people with different biases to get a good understanding of what is happening.
Rockets alone don't get you (and even less hold) territory for you.
If you wanna use rockets effectively you need damn good intelligence (potential targets) and the ability to hit them (accuracy). And there is evidence the Russians are lacking both to a certain degree.
When you imagine two rocket systems that are pointed at each other there are multiple factors deciding which side wins. Accuracy and range being two of them.
The western HIMARS rocket system used by the Ukrainians is far more accurate than everything Russia has (in sufficient numbers) and the range is (afaik) better than the artillery range of the russian side. Which means the Ukraine can hit them, before they can hit the highly mobile HIMARS (which might already be at a different place once they fired their payload).
That being said one of the major factors in this war has always been that one side is defending. That means Ukrainians have better morale and better intelligence, because the people living in these regions might still supply them with information about Russian troups.
Depends, they have kalibr cruise missiles that can hit pretty accurately but they are expensive and they don't have many. Other than that, it's mostly the artillery doing most of the punching and they aren't accurate and subject to being arty'd back. They don't have precision munitions for these arty and ukranians do have som M982 Excaliburs which are pretty accurate.
Russia has leveled many areas held by Ukraine. But as things have progressed, the west has been giving Ukraine a ton of support, including anti-missile defense systems. The war has also demonstrated quite clearly that Russia's military might was overblown, and they've actually been severely undermined by decades of corruption.
I suspect that it is very "overblown" at this point. Russia are using shit equipment all over. Maybe they're afraid those "thousands of missiles" will land on their heads instead of where they're aiming it because they haven't been maintained for decades.
Russia is using shit, but that shit caused 100s of billions in damage. Yes, Ukraine is pushing them out with more superior weaponry, but the damage Russian “shit” left will be felt for decades.
Source: lived through something similar 30 years ago, sponsored by Russia.
There have been a few cases of Russian missiles being launched then after 50 metres or so turning round and targeting their own launch site. So you’re not far off
Land is large compared to the blast radius of a missile. You can't blanket the landscape with conventional weapons to destroy the land. You have to target individual units. What you can do is to semi randomly shoot into occupied territory, like with old fashioned howitzers or the London blitz. And while both sides did that, especially Russia shelling cities like Kyiv in the beginning of the war, I guess it isn't really effective militarily.
What I wonder though is why Russia doesn't use satellites combined with (dumb) rockets against moving troops, even if it is not very efficient. Does that mean they don't have much of a stockpile left?
There's some reporting/speculation that suggests that Russia has actually gone through a lot of its weapons during the invasion. It's possible that the quantity and quality of the Russian rocket stockpile was greatly overestimated, much like that of the army's: you don't mobilize reservists if your great army is still in top fighting shape.
The easiest possible grift is to get a contract to procure (say) 100 rockets, actually build and deliver only 50 (or 20 or 10), then forge the paperwork for the rest, pay off the right people and split the proceeds. And this kind of thing is notoriously endemic in the Russian army.
> Russia probably has many thousands of rockets with which they can attack Ukraine's territory, right?
Russia has already used much of their cruise missile stockpiles, or at least the amounts they're willing to use while still reserving some in case of an invasion of Russia by some other state. Further, they're likely limited in how many they can produce because many of them used western components. While they certainly stockpiled some components, how many they have stockpiled is an open question.
> How can the Ukraine hold on to any territory in this situation?
Cruise missiles don't help you hold on to territory. They are used for strategic targets.
> Can't Russia just level any area held by Ukrainian forces with rockets?
If you're referring to unguided rockets, i.e. so-called rocket artillery, those have relatively poor accuracy and don't get you much better than regular artillery barrages. They've also used many of those earlier in the war and Ukraine has captured some as well.
something not mentioned in the other comments, the frontline is large and the density of soldiers is low. The entire frontline is something like 2000 kilometers. That's larger than the distance from Berlin to Rome. Rockets can do damage against strategic targets but as fanned out as many of the confrontations are, there's limits to what any single strike can hit. Ukraine has made good use out of very mobile, small units.
well they used up most of their stockpile of cruise missiles without much success. From missiles getting shutdown to missiles targeting system being so crappy they don't actually hit the targets to intel being so bad that the target is some rando abandoned warehouse/factory.
What most people don't understand about (this and most) war is what Clausewitz said plainly:
Warfare has three main objects:
(a) To conquer and destroy the armed power of the enemy;
(b) To take possession of his material and other sources of strength, and
(c) To gain public opinion.
Notice that none of that says "gain and hold terrority". Think about that and compare it to what you're hearing. I'm simplifying, but you are now more informed than most people.
It appears that the Russians are not interested in leveling civilian infrastructure. It took them six months to attack energy installations unlike some other alliances which wrecked water and power installations in Syria in six hours.
Russians were not interested in levelling civilian infrastructure, because they planed to use it for their own needs. Their plan was to capture territory, murder "nazi" (Ukrainians), and then steal everything valuable, like wheat, complex machinery, computers, phones, or even toilets.
They did not shy away from leveling Chechnya, in case you are attributing some sort of inherent virtue to RF military and political command.
Complex internal and external equations are scoping RFs actions, just as they do any other aggressive military power's behavior. US doesn't have to live next to future generations of its leveled victims. Russia's victim, in this case, lives next door and is family. And sure I know of the famous Russian Indian affinity, but there remains the appearance that only brown nations get that treatment. Including from Russians. Something to keep in mind ..
There is no evidence Russia has a large inventory of useful standoff munitions.
For example, Russian has been making extensive usage of s-300 surface to air missiles in ground to ground mode.
While this capability was considered during design, it's an act of desperation. SAM's are mostly propellent with a small warhead. (The point is to catch up quickly with a delicate fast moving object and frag it to shreds).
The s-300 is pretty inaccurate in this role and is mostly useful as a terror weapon. (They are fast and hard to counter).
Additional, they have been repurposing air to ship missiles (kh-22's), which are notoriously inaccurate. The high causality shopping mall incident in late June was a kh-22 likely attempting to hit a nearby factory.
All said, there is no evidence that Russia has any surplus of tactical weapons. Estimates that up to 70% of dedicated LACM weapons have been expended already.
Alternatively perhaps you mean tube artillery and unguided MLRS systems like the Grads?
That is precisely how they battle. Artillery grinds down everything into rubble and infantry moves forward a few kilometers - rinse and repeat.
Ukraine has blunted this tactic by pressuring artillery supply with HIMARS, partisans and drone delivered munitions.
Now the big question is if Russia will use a tactical nuke as an area denial weapon. Russian troops have limited capacity to operate in a radiological environment, and NATO repercussions would be monumental.
Personally I believe a tactical nuke would bring us to the edge of a thermonuclear war.
Here's how I see it playing out;
Russia drops a small dial-a-yield outside Kherson to deter Ukrainian advance.
NATO attacks the Black Sea fleet and starts to provide air cover over Western Ukraine. Poland moves "peace keeping" troops along the Russian/Ukraine border.
Rus/NATO incidents start to occur, triggering an escalatory spiral.
Once you've used a tactical nuke once, it's easier the second and third and fourth time.
NATO article 5 is invoked after food supplies are poisoned from fallout.
Russia's conventional forces are totally depleted, leaving only the strategic air force and nuclear triad left as a response to NATO.
Putin deep inside his nuclear bunker, isolated from outside contact, makes a decision.
As the sibling comment points out, Russia has been leveling many areas with rockets and artillery. But those are not infinite, and stocks need replenishing, which Russia is incapable of doing. Which is why we've seen them going into the reserves with obsolete Tochka missile systems, and buying artillery ammunition from North Korea.
TL;DR: They tried, but they have more targets than ammunition, so failed.
The damage to the rail-bridge must be quite limited, since Russia’s transport ministry reports trains will be running again at 8pm local time tonight [1].
Maybe, maybe not, but it's been the standard operating procedure of Russian government to - in reaction to setbacks during this war - produce a gradient of progressively worse news instead of giving out the whole truth at once.
With fuel fires burning that long on the rail bridge, the steel is useless now. I haven't seen any images of RU fire-fighting on the bridge to put anything out. They'll need to replace the tracks at the very least. Likely they'll need to replace all of those sections of rail bridge. That would take ~2 weeks to a month in the US in peace time. As RU doesn't have span launchers, it's going to take them months to repair, if they even can get the pre-made spans to do so, what with sanctions. That bridge is kaput for at least 3 months, if not the whole war.
Even if they can run trains over it, they're not going to be able to run full loads safely. The fire will have weakened the steel, removing some of the margin of the bridge strength.
Not likely since the mobilization system is saturated and not coping well with the current volume. In fact, the schedule regular mobilization has been delayed for thi reason.
Not to belittle what is experienced by Ukrainians, but the Russian Federation is truly not at war - yet.
The mobilization has barley started and seems to be mismanaged, the industry has not been transformed to war effort, the legal system was not adjusted ( there is a challege to the legality of mobilization, military with contracts were allowed to break those) political system hasn't changed to support war style decision making.
It is not clear if the RF can do all these things without tearing itself apart.
Yes, they do everything not to call this war a war. But practically speaking, even if they haven't transformed their industry into total war machine yet (they started the process already), the war has been going on, it's just a question of semantics.
As someone not into war, I didn't know those words meant anything different from just large scale war or all out war. From Wikipedia, yes it seems total war is what is meant:
> Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs.
It will deplete Russian population and weaken the Russian army even more. Nevertheless, Putin seem the kind of person who is afraid to admit defeat so I wouldn't count on him giving up too soon.
More mobilization is impractical; the current mobilization seems to already be far more than the system can handle.
And as for straight out war...the war went hot in Feb. Russia has been holding nothing back in its (so far futile) efforts to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.
And Crimea has been attacked many times already, it's clearly not a red line, nor has Putin expressed any clear "red lines". (Many red lines have been hinted it, many have been blown through without a response.)
It is war between Ukraine and Russia, regardless how Putin markets it. Ukraine hit an airfield inside Russia on the 25th of February. They are not going to use nukes
It's pretty wild. We've learned that Putin doesn't really think in fixed positions as much as he says, so it'll be interesting to see how things go from here.
Putin prefers to think more situationally and kind of saves up his logic for the moment that arrives, previous statements notwithstanding. So any prior statements about Crimea were just as likely due to the burden of needing to reassure specific Russians living there at the time, and there's really no specific red line, even though one might be figured out looking back on all this someday...
Real war is on the streets, people dying, and it is unacceptable. Meanwhile, propaganda in social media, with all these memes, jokes and threats, and are very disturbing and sickening, because they take worst from real war, inhuman and twisted jokes and package them in meme content for everyone to consume. All this was unimaginable 10 years ago. Also, in my opinion, the worst war propaganda content comes from pro Ukraine usernames, I can not explain why, and what is the point.
I find your post disingenuous and possibly propaganda itself, especially because you're quoting a Russian government news source in your post.
The thing that is unacceptable is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nothing about Ukraine trying to push the invaders out of it's own country in any means they can is unacceptable. The memes and jokes in media are trying to turn something extremely grim into something a little more lighthearted to release stress. Otherwise people would lose their minds amidst all the tortures, mass murders of civilians and other activities being performed upon Ukrainian civilians by the Russian invaders.
And yes, social media being heavily involved would be something unimaginable 10 years ago, because the proliferation of cell phones has now reached much of the world, giving us direct access to the horrors of war.
And no, the worst war propaganda comes from Russia where they literally advocate for the elimination of Ukrainian civilians among other atrocities.
> I find your post disingenuous and possibly propaganda itself, especially because you're quoting a Russian government news source in your post.
Instead of humble meta discussion about propaganda, you mark my point of view as propaganda, which in turn reads as propaganda itself.
I would happily quote some top western news media, only if it would not be completely one-sided. There is no democracy anymore there, where you paint one-sided picture and block other sides news sources.
> The memes and jokes in media are trying to turn something extremely grim into something a little more lighthearted to release stress.
I would argue that it is unethical, and mostly about warmongering and not stress release.
> all the tortures, mass murders of civilians and other activities being performed upon Ukrainian civilians by the Russian invaders.
> And no, worst war propaganda comes from Russia where they literally advocate for the elimination of Ukrainian civilians among other atrocities.
Either that or you live in a media bubble so different, that our opinions exactly opposite. Thankfully, it is just an opinion, and not a ground truth.
> I would happily quote some top western news media, only if it would not be completely one-sided. There is no democracy anymore there, where you paint one-sided picture and block other sides news sources.
That kind of argument doesn't work when you're listening to literally state-run media of the enemy. You could compare and contrast RT versus say Voice of America or Radio Free Europe, but not versus independent reporting. RT is by definition "one-sided". They have only one interest, the Russian government interest.
> I would argue that it is unethical, and mostly about warmongering and not stress release.
You call the praising of liberators and freeing of people from the oppression of their murderers and rapists as "warmongering"?
> Either that or you live in a media bubble so different, that our opinions exactly opposite. Thankfully, it is just an opinion, and not a ground truth.
If all you listen to is RT and related outlets, then it's no wonder you have lost the ability for independent thought.
> That kind of argument doesn't work when you're listening to literally state-run media
There is no difference at this point whether it is state-run or privately owned, if it behaves like a propaganda machine — it is a propaganda machine. So-called independent reporting completely lost credibility in recent years, particularly in politics, seems like it is not possible to have independent reporting, it is by virtue codependent on the state it is created within.
> media of the enemy
That is one way to put it, but there are other ways, friend.
> all you listen to is RT and related outlets
> no wonder you have lost the ability for independent thought
No, I peak pretty broadly, including Spiegel, NY Times, WP, Guardian, aljazeera, and RT and related outlets are nonetheless decent news sources. To ignore it, is to deny realty on the other side of the fog of war.
> mass murders of civilians
> praising of liberators
> oppression of their murderers and rapists
> turn something extremely grim into something a little more lighthearted
This is all unverified due to the fog of war, and to create derivative in the form of lighthearted jokes and memes is to be a propaganda tool on behalf of ruling elites.
> RT and related outlets are nonetheless decent news sources
They are a part of state propaganda apparatus, with editorial board directly controlled by Putin's administration. To equate that with the likes of der Spiegel and the Guardian is just laughable. No, your "media" and our media are not the same. NYT, der Spiegel, the Guardian et al have had their share of sloppy reporting, but Biden, Truss and Scholz don't get to say what they write about and what tone they use. That's a whole different level.
> This is all unverified due to the fog of war
No it's not, you're just in denial because accepting the truth would place you in the same bracket as Germans in 1945. It's far easier to come up with all kinds of excuses and whataboutisms than actually emotionally process and accept that. Judging by the Germans, many of you will never able to process it and will keep saying that the Fuehrer did nothing wrong and that the atrocities were made up or at least blown out of proportion.
> This is all unverified due to the fog of war, and to create derivative in the form of lighthearted jokes and memes is to be a propaganda tool on behalf of ruling elites.
Or are you going to believe that Ukraine is bombing it's apartment buildings of it's own citizens in it's own territory in order to make Russia look bad, like the Russian state media tells you?
This is Russia retaliating for the strike on the Crimean bridge, several days of terrorist attacks where they intentionally strike only apartment buildings killing dozens of civilians.
Agree, this photos not faked, but it is not memes I was talking about, so do not twist my point of view here in regard to memes.
We can find photos that as well show attack from Ukraine side on civilian infrastructure. And it is not different from an attack on a bridge by Ukraine that also took lives of civilians.
These photos prove only that war is still going on, which I strongly condemn.
They are not proving your words that there is `mass murders of civilians` and that there is `murderers and rapists`
You're labeling one side terrorist and other liberators. Please take into consideration previous 30 years of history in the region and reasons why the whole conflict escalated in the first place. Roles of multiple parties, including Russia, NATO, US, and west.
Otherwise, this labeling and rhetoric is twisted double standards and hypocrisy, that west by the way is soaked through.
If west wanted peace, they would argue for dialogue for peaceful balanced compromises between sides, instead it is propaganda of liberation from oppression, and warmongering, which I have mentioned before.
Instead, west fuel media with Russophobia and fuel conflict with arms and military intelligence, seems like west do not even care whether there would be livable cities and land left after all this artificially created bizarre conflict.
Russia also just like Ukraine uses somewhat twisted rhetoric in media, nonetheless any intelligent unaffiliated observer understands that this conflict is much more than just `liberation from ukraininan neo-nazi` or `liberation from russian oppression`.
I would recommend for anyone to not consume just one side of rhetoric.
Why don't you list your non-propaganda media sources? The only one I can think of was WikiLeaks, but your trustworthy, benevolent western governments made sure to destroy it.
There is likely no workable method of supply or reinforcement for RU forces in southern Ukraine this winter.
[0] https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/10/08/himars-strike-destroy...
[1] https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/15786357973598986...