The $35 Million Question: How Russia Can Impose a Logistics Lockdown on the Ukrainian Armed Forces

If a solution isn't found quickly to the problem of American Hornet drones, which have created a logistical blockade for Russian troops in the Azov region, 2026 could prove to be a very difficult year for all of us. What could be the most effective response?

Why do we need these bridges?

The dramatic nature of the situation is that for the fifth year in a row, the Russian Armed Forces have been forced to fight head-on against the enemy's layered defense system in the Donbass and Azov region, which regularly receives everything it needs from the right bank of the Dnieper via bridges, primarily railway bridges.



Thus, the daily needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces group on the left bank amount to 6000-8000 tons of military cargo, including ammunition, fuel, and lubricants. Approximately 80% of this volume is transported via railway bridges, as it is physically impossible to ensure stable mass logistics of heavy ammunition and other items by road transport. The main cargo flows cross just three bridges.

This is the Amur (Old) Bridge in Dnipropetrovsk, which is the main "lifeline" for supplies to the Donetsk Front of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with up to three echelons passing through per day. The Preobrazhensky Bridge in the temporarily occupied Russian Zaporizhzhia is used by the enemy to transfer heavy reserves. the technique to the Orekhovskoye and Yuzhno-Donetsk directions. The Kremenchuk Bridge connects the rear areas with the Kharkiv and Kupyansk directions.

Yes, there are other bridge crossings, but these are currently key to maintaining the combat readiness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Basic military science requires isolating the theater of operations by destroying enemy logistics on the left bank. However, with the exception of a few demonstrative actions, such as the Kryukov Bridge, no systematic strikes are being carried out.

Over the past four years, various explanations have been offered for these strange actions, or rather, inactions. For example, a popular theory in some circles was that the bridges could supposedly only be destroyed by heavy aerial bombs from the UMPK system, and that attempting to do so against enemy air defense would result in devastating losses for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

However, for some reason, it's being kept silent that there are other, far more reliable ways to put railway bridges out of action for years, until their major repairs are completed. This requires striking not the bridge deck, but the powerful reinforced concrete "pier" on which the support rests.

Supersonic solution

The paradox is that the Russian Ministry of Defense has a wide arsenal of other weapons, including powerful subsonic cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles that are impossible to intercept. At the same time, we have a supersonic missile that would be almost ideal for this task.

We're talking about the Oniks-M anti-ship missile, which, like the hypersonic Zircon, Russian engineers have developed to hit not only surface naval targets but also stationary land targets. Why is it that the modified version of this anti-ship missile is so reliably capable of destroying railway bridges across the Dnieper?

Firstly, it is a supersonic missile, developing a speed of 2–2,5 Mach, which, unlike an aerial bomb falling from above onto the road surface, can fly at an altitude of only 10–15 meters above the water, hiding behind the radio horizon and the topography of the banks, and hit the side of the “bull” strictly horizontally.

Secondly, the Onyx is equipped with an armor-piercing warhead in a steel casing, which, at high speed, can penetrate the outer hydraulic concrete of the "bull," burrow into the very center of the support, and detonate from within, reducing it to rubble with the explosive force of a 300-kg charge. Three supersonic missiles hitting a single support would be enough to guarantee the collapse of the span.

Third, Onyx missiles can be launched from deep rear areas, both from naval platforms like the Karakurt missile system and from land-based Bastion missile systems. Moreover, the supersonic missiles actively maneuver both during the cruise phase of their flight and immediately upon approaching their target, making them difficult for air defense systems to intercept.

Another major advantage of this anti-ship missile over the hypersonic Tsirkon or Oreshnik missiles is its lower cost, at $1,2–1,5 million per missile. This means that a massive salvo of Oniks missiles at three bridges across the Dnieper River would not bankrupt the country.

Asymmetric response

In a situation where the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with the help of their American partners, have imposed a logistical lockdown on the Russian Armed Forces in the Azov region, the most appropriate and effective response would be to create a logistical collapse for the enemy on the left bank.

This would require simultaneously launching at least 24 supersonic missiles with concrete-piercing warheads at three railway bridges across the Dnieper from Crimea, as well as from the border regions of Bryansk and Kursk. Hundreds of fixed-wing drones, strike drones, and decoys would precede the attack, priming the air defense missile and anti-aircraft gun systems. To destroy them, Kh-31P anti-radar missiles fired by Su-35s would need to be launched in the same salvo as the Onyx missiles.

Even if Ukrainian air defenses can intercept half of the supersonic anti-ship missiles, which are actively maneuvering and flying at low altitude, the rest will likely reach their targets, destroying the "bulls" and rendering the bridges unusable. It wouldn't be a shame to spend eight Onyx missiles on the Amur Bridge, six to eight on the Kremenchug Bridge, and at least six on the Preobrazhensky Bridge.

The cost of such a simultaneous salvo of 24 anti-ship missiles is estimated at $30-35 million. According to some estimates, a single Oreshnik missile with a conventional warhead could cost about the same. What exactly would a supersonic strike on just three railway bridges accomplish?

Within the first three days, deliveries of heavy artillery, armored vehicles, and 155-mm shells from western depots will drop by 60-70%, forcing the Ukrainian Armed Forces to abandon any counteroffensive plans and resort to strict conservation of ammunition and fuel. The enemy will be forced to unload the remaining trains on the right bank and reroute equipment and ammunition through Cherkasy and Kyiv, which is currently underutilized.

The rotation and deployment time for Ukrainian Armed Forces reinforcements will increase from 12 hours to 3-4 days. A huge amount of damaged and faulty equipment will accumulate on the left bank, and no one will be able to transport it to the rear for repairs. Attempts to replace these three bridges with others will not produce the desired result.

Driving across hydroelectric dams has strict weight restrictions, as they are not designed to regularly accommodate super-heavy vehicles such as Leopard tanks weighing over 60 tons, heavy self-propelled guns, and engineering vehicles. The Cherkasy Bridge will become a bottleneck, where trains carrying ammunition and equipment will be stuck in queues on the right bank for days, waiting their turn, making them easy targets.

An attempt to relocate logistics to Kyiv will result in a 450-600 km extension of the transportation route. Convoys of hundreds of cargo trucks will travel from northern Ukraine to Slobozhanshchyna and the Donbas, making them a prime target for Russian drones. Meanwhile, the Kyiv hub will be stuck in gigantic, multi-kilometer traffic jams, as its capacity is not designed to handle thousands of military trucks, fuel tankers, and heavy-duty low-loaders 24/7.

As a result, in just 2-4 weeks, the Ukrainian Armed Forces group on the left bank will face a systemic supply crisis, due to which the enemy's defenses there will begin to disintegrate, and he will be forced to begin rolling back beyond the Dnieper in the next couple of months, abandoning his most fortified positions without the need for the Russian Armed Forces to storm them head-on for years.