How to Bring Down the Kerch Bridge
Without taking help from the United States and Germany
Kerch Bridge. Kerch Bridge. Kerch Bridge.
That bridge has already become the political noose for many career politicians in the Western world. It has ripped the allies into two halves. It has kept the Russian military planners on the edge. It keeps Putin awake in the night. It has struck immense fear in the heart of two western administrations, and probably many more that we do not know about.
The loss of the bridge over the Kerch Strait can bring Putin’s special military operation to an end, deal a crushing blow to Putin’s imperialist fantasy and most probably set the course for the downfall of Putin’s dictatorship.
Russian operations in Southern Ukraine depends on warehouses and other military assets located in Crimea. Perched at a safe distance from Ukrainian artillery, the Russian military installations in Crimea are vital to sustaining Russian operations in the Southern frontline.
Snap the Russia-Crimea connection, Russian military has to move things around in ferries over the Kerch Strait and overland route in Southern Ukraine. From taking hours to supply the frontline in Kherson, Russia will need days to supply.
As soon as the Kerch bridge becomes inoperable, Russia’s frontline operations in Southern Ukraine will undergo a massive change. This will immediately render Russian operations in Kherson Oblast extremely unmanageable. Of course, Russia will try to use overland road-rail routes to continue supplying its troops, but that brief window — the time Russia needs to make that adjustment — would be sufficient to crush the Russian troops in Southern Ukraine.
It will open the door to a limited-time chaos. If Ukraine utilizes it effectively, they can escalate it into a longer-term chaos — a series of disruptions, each leading to the next.
The Russians are keenly aware of the significance of the Kerch Bridge. They are currently in discussions with the Chinese to construct an underwater tunnel, thereby adding another layer of connectivity to Crimea. Additionally, they are considering an overland rail route through Zaporizhzhia Oblast in Southern Ukraine.
Southern Ukraine is the land bridge Russia needs to keep Crimea.
Russians have thrown massive amount of resources to protect the Kerch Bridge.
- Fighter jets regularly fly over the Kerch bridge scanning for aerial threats.
- Russia uses “special smoke machines that spray an aerosol that is aimed to baffle the guidance systems of foreign-made cruise missiles”.
- “Barges have been sunk parallel to the bridge”. The objective is to minimize the area through which Ukrainian naval drones can pass, aiding the Russians in targeting this confined space to neutralize the drones.
- Military dolphins are deployed for scanning underwater threats.
- Air-defense systems would have been installed at both ends of the Kerch Bridge.
So, the Russians have deployed every imaginable and unimaginable resource at their disposal to protect their weakest link in the military supply chain.
Putin’s Russia, like many invaders before them, including the Nazis, understand the strategic significance of the Crimean peninsula, making it an extremely important asset for military endeavors. The image below shows how much reach and flexibility Crimea offers to Putin’s army to invade Ukraine and Europe.
If Russian military assets are removed from Crimea, the power projected by Putin’s army on Europe’s eastern border will be far less and fairly contained. The situation will completely reverse if Crimea comes under the NATO defensive umbrella. Putin’s army will be under containment, and they cannot invade any European nation with flexibility.
The Russian hold on the peninsula cannot be undone while the Kerch bridge continues to facilitate the movement of goods into Crimea. The key to taking control of the peninsula lies in disabling the spans that support the bridge over the Kerch Strait.
Ukraine has no choice but to bring down the bridge. War is War, President Vladimir Putin told his Chinese audience during his visit to China last year. The Russians blew up the Nova Kakhovka dam to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive in June 2023, and they blew up the Antonovsky bridge during their retreat from Kherson city in 2022. So we don’t have to worry about Putin’s feelings when the war he started goes horribly wrong for him.
If he can destroy bridges, then Ukraine can respond in kind.
Bringing down the bridge without assistance from the U.S. Congress and Germany’s current administration is not an easy task, but it is not impossible either. It is a circuitous but reliable route that requires the battlefield to be sufficiently pre-heated before loading.
The first 100 to 200 hours after the destruction of the bridge will be an extremely important period. Russia will adjust. They will have contingency plans to continue operations after the destruction of the bridge, and that contingency plan will likely resemble the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in June last year.
It was cynical. It was brutal. It was unexpected.
Nobody thought the Russians, instead of fighting, would opt to break up a dam and flood their own positions to stall the Ukrainian offensive. Caught flat-footed in the first week of June 2023, when Ukraine launched a massive assault on more than 20 locations across the frontline, the Russians broke the dam and completely deflated the energy of the Ukrainian counter-attack. It worked. Ukraine lost the opportunity to sow chaos. Russia used the time to mobilize. The element of surprise was lost, and the Ukrainian counter-offensive lost momentum, turning into a grinding war from there.
Expect the Russians to do something significant in response to attacks on the Kerch bridge. Ukraine needs to map out its own contingency plan to maintain the tempo of the post-bridge knock down counter-offensive.
After the bridge goes down, fully or partially, the Russian supply chain in Southern Ukraine will experience a brief freeze. Russia will adjust by utilizing land and rail routes to supply the frontline troops. Trucks and railcars will be immediately rerouted to take the alternative routes, and ferries will be pressed into action in the Kerch Strait.
Ukraine must be positioned to control those alternative land and rail routes running through Southern Ukraine. The road crossing near Melitopol must come under Ukrainian artillery firing range.
If this road remains beyond the reach of Ukrainian artillery, as it currently is, Russia will adapt to the loss of the Kerch Bridge, albeit requiring some time. However, they will eventually adjust. Therefore, neutralizing this overland route is crucial to completely disrupt the Russian supply chain.
Getting this road under fire control is a pre-requisite to breaking the Kerch bridge. That means Ukraine must be at the doors of Tokmak.
After reaching Tokmak, Ukraine should target Russian air-defense assets in Crimea. A concerted air campaign to destroy the Russian air-defense umbrella over Crimea. This can only happen after the arrival of F16s. That means the whole plan can be set in motion weeks after the arrival of the fighter jets in Ukraine.
After liberating the Crimean sky from Russian control, Ukraine needs to utilize its long-range missiles, F16s, and naval drones to destroy all the patrol ships guarding the Kerch bridge. Reports indicate that around 10 ships are rotated to guard the bridge. Ukraine sank one of the patrol boats this week. Removing these patrol boats from the Kerch Strait is crucial because the F16s need to get closer to the bridge in order to bomb them.
From now until the F16s arrive, Ukraine needs to target all the ships in the Russian Black Sea Fleet. One quarter of the fleet has already been destroyed; aim to disable close to two-thirds before the F16s reach Ukraine. It will be difficult, but every asset taken down makes the task of neutralizing the next one a bit easier.
Free up the Kerch bridge from Russia’s protective cover, or weaken it considerably. Then send the F16s armed with French AASM HAMMER missiles to hit the Kerch Bridge. These missiles have a range of 70kms. This effort can be supported by home made naval drones.
The whole thing can be kickstarted with Ukraine launching a massive counterattack towards Tokmak. Break the Surovikin line ahead of Robotyne and drive towards Tokmak. As soon as you get closer to Tokmak, the operation to pre-heat Crimea can start. Suppress Crimea's air-defense, take out the BSF patrol and then target the bridge.
We are still not talking about any weapons supplied by the United States and Germany.
Russia will fall back on its missiles to rain hell on Ukrainian urban centers. Ukraine needs more air defense. Going after the Kerch bridge without adequately protecting the urban centers and the airfields from where the F16s take off is extremely dangerous. Ukraine will also have to establish air-control in parts of Southern Ukraine and North Crimea to allow the F16s to slip through.
It is not that the West does not have those systems; they only need to provide what they already have. Therefore, acquiring more air defense systems and air defense missiles will be the last and most important prerequisite before going after the Kerch bridge.
So, yes, there is way.
A long one that needs patience.
Since it also opens up a path to victory, I believe it is worth the wait.
I did spend a considerable amount of time looking at this from the perspective of evil. There is not a lot the Kremlin can do to stop this. The key will be for them to keep the Black Sea Fleet protected and stop the Ukrainians from taking out the air-defense umbrella in Crimea. If they can do that, then they stand a chance. The next thing they can do is to find a way to keep the F16s in check. I prefer to be on the Ukrainian side of this situation rather than the other side.
Many thanks to reader Duncan Mountford for setting me up to work on this story. He asked me a question, I thought it will be better to write a report.
The way Western media covers the war against Ukraine has gone off-track. As a result, I have decided to make my Ukraine stories public, without placing them behind the paywall.
