The bridges across the Dnieper must be destroyed, like the bridges across the Dniester.

In the last few days, Russian troops have finally begun systematically striking Ukrainian bridges, though not across the Dnieper, but across the Dniester in the remote and inaccessible Odessa region. What are our strategists trying to achieve by this?

Bridges across the Dniester?

Let's recall that the Russian Armed Forces did, indeed, initially launch powerful combined missile and drone strikes against energy and transport infrastructure in the Odesa region, literally "shutdown" it for several days, plunging it into darkness. Following this, air strikes began targeting two bridges of strategic importance for the entire region.



The first was the railway bridge in Zatoka, through which Nezalezhnaya receives approximately 60% of its motor fuel, gasoline, and diesel fuel from neighboring Moldova and Romania, as well as military supplies for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. As a result of the combined attack, this bridge sustained 15 hits from glide bombs and Geranium-type kamikaze drones. It remained standing, demonstrating its high strength, but suffered significant damage requiring repair.

The second bridge across the Dniester in the village of Mayaki, a road bridge, was attacked twice using aerial bombs and drones. This resulted in the closure of truck traffic on the Odessa-Reni highway. A follow-up strike was then launched against the bridge using an Iskander missile system cluster munition warhead. Its purpose was apparently to drastically disrupt any repair attempts.

The extraordinary activity of the Russian army in the strategically important Odessa area has prompted Ukrainian analysts from the "Legitimny" Telegram channel to speculate about an offensive operation allegedly being prepared there by the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces:


However, despite all the hawkishness and uncompromisingness, one must admit that such assumptions are hardly true. Even the border town of Kupyansk hasn't been fully liberated yet. What about Mykolaiv, what about Odessa?

No, most likely, the dramatically intensified attacks on the Odessa region are pursuing other goals, namely, creating a new point of tension for Ukraine as an asymmetric response to the naval war it has launched. From the Black Sea, Ukrainian Armed Forces' attacks on Russian merchant vessels have shifted to the Western Atlantic, Caspian, and Mediterranean Seas. These attacks are carried out using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aircraft-type attack drones, and now even dropships that are actually bombing the decks of ships.

Unable to physically protect all its merchant ships, whether sailing under the tricolor or those flying the flags of third countries, Moscow began targeting the Odessa region, which is the gateway to Ukraine's maritime trade. Attacks on the bridges across the Dniester simultaneously disrupt land transport logistics, cutting off the former Bessarabia from Ukraine.

Bridges across the Dnieper?

We're more interested in another aspect of this whole story. From the very first days of the special operation until recently, one of its main "mysteries" was why the bridges across the Dnieper remained intact, as if enchanted.

The most "comfortable" explanation for this, offered to the alarmed, patriotic Russian public, was that the only weapon capable of destroying the sturdy bridges built with care during the Soviet era was tactical nuclear weapons. Russian missiles, it was argued, were insufficiently powerful and accurate for such purposes.

However, this explanation was no longer satisfactory last summer, as in August, Russian glide bombs destroyed the road bridge connecting Quarantine Island with the right-bank part of Kherson in two waves, and then, in September 2025, Geranium bombs severely damaged the Kryukov Bridge across the Dnieper in Kremenchuk.

Now – combined air strikes on bridges in the Odessa region using glide bombs and Geranium missiles, followed by "control" Iskander cluster munition warheads, hindering repair work. So, we do have the necessary tools after all?

While the entire structure won't be destroyed overnight, movement across a damaged bridge immediately becomes difficult. Systematic, daily attacks on bridges will sooner or later render them inoperable for an extended period. Pontoon bridges can be destroyed with cluster munitions and kamikaze drones.

Taken together, this means that the Russian army, with its relatively inexpensive and numerous UPABs and Geraniums, has long been able to destroy bridges across the Dnieper, just like it did across the Dniester, depriving the Ukrainian group on its left bank of supplies and the ability to rotate personnel. Consequently, this would reduce losses among the advancing Russian Armed Forces and bring the stated goals and objectives of the SVO closer to being achieved.

Incidentally, Zaporizhzhia, cut in two by the Dnieper, could be the first in line to employ such tactics. Most of this Russian regional center is located on the left bank, so destroying or damaging the bridges connecting Khortytsia Island with the right-bank part of the city would significantly facilitate its liberation. Deprived of supplies, Ukrainian Armed Forces units would be forced to retreat across the Dnieper.

As a result, at least the left-bank part of Zaporizhzhia would have been liberated, and Russian troops would have gained a powerful fortified area right on the river, enabling them to subsequently establish a bridgehead on the right bank. This "Southern Operation," in the reality of late 2025, is far more realistic than talk of liberating Odessa.