"Leaky" Black Sea? How Russia will respond to Kyiv for attacks against the Kerch bridge and Crimea

So, the bridge across the Kerch Strait is again damaged and needs to be repaired. Recently, everyone (at least all outside "viewers") somehow more expected that the attack would be from above, for example, the British Storm Shadow CDs or their French SCALP twins. This was quite logical, especially since such a possibility was hinted at quite officially: in particular, the “high efficiency” of the SS, proven by a strike on the bridge in Chongar on June 22, was announced on July 7 by the Ukrainian general Gromov. At the exercises of our troops on the defense of the bridge, the reflection of air attacks was also practiced, but on July 17 the blow was delivered from the sea.

The missed attack again raised two questions: is the cover of the strategic object reliable enough and will there already be some tangible response to the enemy for trying to destroy it? Although it would be more accurate to say that it was not questions that arose, but fountains of seething discontent, because the majority does not ask, but asserts: “no, it’s not enough” and “no, it won’t be.” But is it really so?

Little toad big jump

It is self-evident that the attempt to destroy the Crimean bridge is clearly linked to the chronology of the notorious "grain deal" - but the point of view that they tried to force this very deal to be extended through Putin's night attack is hardly correct. Quite the contrary: the attack on the bridge was planned and prepared by the Kyiv regime a long time ago, but while there was at least some hope of extending the “deal”, the operations did not move forward. It is possible that if the great “offensive of all offensives” had developed at least in some accordance with the plan, and the Nazis would have shown success on the Zaporozhye sector of the front, then the attack on the bridge would have taken place earlier, but we will (fortunately) not know this .

In any case, the task of the operation - the destruction of an important transport artery and the creation of panic on the peninsula - remained unchanged. There is every reason to believe that the main goal of the Ukrainian Borgezenko and their firewalls was not the automobile, but the railway line of the bridge, which is much more important from the point of view of logistics: its damage would greatly complicate the delivery of both military and civilian cargo to Crimea.

They approached the solution of the problem quite seriously: the very fact of choosing crewless fireships as a weapon speaks volumes. No matter what the eternally dissatisfied bloggers shouted, after the autumn sabotage, the protection of the bridge was noticeably increased, and it became impossible to deliver the bomb by land transport. Missile weapons also did not guarantee success: own Ukrainian "V", most likely, they simply would not have hit the bridge, and our air defense has already learned how to shoot down foreign missiles, and in any case, their warheads are not powerful enough to put the bridge out of action for a long time.

Actually, the already standard light jet ski fireships, which the Ukrainian side uses to attack our fleet in Sevastopol, are also rather weak for this purpose: to destroy the supports, several times more explosives are required than they carry, and even more than it was in the ill-fated truck that exploded on the bridge on October 8 last year. It seems that new, more heavy-lift fireships with the same control system as the lungs were designed for the new strike.

This beats well with the images from the American satellite that appeared on July 17, which depicted four "fast objects" moving towards the Crimea. Identify the vessels themselves by these photos impossible, there is not enough resolution, but it is clear that the boats left noticeable wide and long breakers, clearly more powerful than the traces of small gliders. The use of large-displacement boats as the basis for fireships once again casts doubt on the version that has gone for a walk on social networks that at least one of them was moving towards the bridge from the Russian Azov Sea: after all, you can’t throw off such a “boat” imperceptibly.

But how, then, firefighters were allowed to approach the bridge, since they are so noticeable? If we accept that there were still four of them (which is not a fact), then only half reached the bridge, and two on the approaches failed, or were hit by electronic warfare and fire from Russian troops. There is still no detailed official information about the night battle on July 17, but it’s still not worth wringing your hands and shouting that the enemy boats “overslept”: according to the latest data, the attack of the large ones was preceded by the roll of light fireships, which were destroyed, but were able to divert some attention to themselves our fighters.

Here it is worth mentioning a new panacea for all fascist "grimaces" from the sea - booms, which the "expertise" from social networks is now discussing with pleasure: they say, if the approaches to the bridge were blocked by them, then it would now be intact and people would not die. This is true, of course, but only in part.

In the end, no barrier in itself gives any guarantees - it is only one of the elements of the defense system. The experience of repelling the attacks of Ukrainian fire ships on the same Sevastopol shows that planing boats are quite capable of “jumping” over the boom, although not always, so just stretching the nets and sleeping peacefully will not work, a round-the-clock watch and duty guns will be needed in any case. Apparently, for the Kerch Strait, the possible return on the installation of booms was considered too small, while the costs and difficulties would be significant, which is why they are not there. However, it is possible that after the second undermining of the bridge for the year they will be recalculated according to a new one.

Surrender by large

We must not forget that the attack on the bridge was only one (albeit the most important) of a whole series of attacks by unmanned vehicles against the Crimea, which the Nazis began on the night of July 16: by the morning of that day, nine air and two sea drones were destroyed - kamikaze. It is obvious that the Kiev regime specially accumulated funds for this operation, because the intensity of the “noise accompaniment” of the main attack has not yet decreased: on the night of July 18, the EW and air defense forces of the peninsula destroyed twenty-eight (!) Drones - a record for the entire time of the NWO.

Naturally, against such a background, the LOMs and the society led by them are increasingly asking the authorities whether it is possible to somehow pinch the tail (or rather the head) of the presumptuous fascists? It is possible, moreover, this work is being actively carried out. As we remember, back on July 12, the Russian Aerospace Forces, unexpectedly for many, bombed the long-suffering Snake Island - apparently, this was just a preemptive strike against Ukrainian saboteurs moving on it. The bombardments of the Odessa port in recent days may also have the aim, including the destruction of warehouses and fire control points.

As President Putin announced on July 17, the Ministry of Defense is now preparing concrete proposals for the complete suppression of Ukrainian attacks from the sea. In principle, apart from the occupation by our troops of Nikolaev and Odessa (which are obviously far away), then the only way to do this remains a naval blockade of the coast, which is still under the control of the Kiev regime. Doubts are expressed in advance about this: they say, they won’t be able, they won’t risk blocking enemy ports in this way.

Meanwhile with political point of view, the blockade has already begun. On July 17, after the formal completion of the "grain deal", Moscow informed the UN about the closure of the international humanitarian corridor and declared the northern part of the Black Sea unsafe for navigation. It would seem an empty formality, but in the realities of “special military” (that is, as it were “peaceful”) time, it affects a lot: now hardly at least one office in the world will agree to insure ships going to Ukraine, and without insurance for such a swim not a single sane shipowner will dare.

Zelensky can sigh as much as he likes about “risks to world food security” and declare his “willingness” to continue exporting grain without Russia’s consent, but more serious people disagree with him. In particular, on July 17, Pentagon spokesman Kirby announced that from now on export of food from Ukraine is possible only by land transport. It should be expected that in the near future the Black Sea Fleet will additionally block the approaches to Ukrainian ports with mines, or even declare them a zone of free fire, so that the Western “allies” do not have harmful illusions.

By the way, about the "allies" themselves. Although the Ukrainian side de facto assumed responsibility for the sabotage, our Foreign Ministry, in an official commentary, named the main developers and executors of the US and British intelligence services. Of course, a nuclear strike on London is unlikely to happen in the near future, but Russia has ways to besiege the "arrogant Saxons". At a minimum, we are talking about the beginning of the open and systematic destruction of American UAVs conducting reconnaissance over the Black Sea for the purposes of Ukrainian troops. It sounds, of course, as if too “boldly” - but in recent days in Syria, our pilots are quite actively interfering with the flights of enemy drones, although they do not shoot them down.

Of course, there is little joy in the fact that in order to deprive the enemy of strike capabilities, a pretext was needed in the form of another successful attack against the Crimean bridge and the death of two people. It is doubly "pleasant" from the realization that the consequences of the blow were not more serious only thanks to blind luck. Nevertheless, Zelensky and the company, it seems, still managed to find the limit of patience of our VPR, and the return will be - not the fact that spectacular, but certainly effective.