Crimean Bridge, aka Kerch Bridge or Kerch Strait Bridge.

This is an extremely important logistics and transport hub of the Russian Federation, which connects Krasnodar Krai with the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

Today, one of the spans of the automobile section of the bridge was destroyed, so let’s talk about the bridge’s history, strategic importance, defense, and previous attempts to destroy it.

The story isn’t new

The idea of connecting Crimea and Russia with a bridge across the Kerch Strait is not new at all. Plans for the construction of a transport artery through the Kerch Strait were voiced during the Russian Empire and the first twenty years of the Soviet Union.

In both cases, the plans were broken by the wars. In the case of the Russian Empire, it was World War I; in the case of the Soviet Union, it was World War II.

The first country that managed to build a crossing was Nazi Germany. On June 14, 1943, the invaders opened a cableway installation through Kerch Strait, that could carry up to a thousand tons of cargo per day for the needs of the 17th Army.

In the spring of 1943, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of a permanent bridge, which was supposed to have a railway and road track.

Its main task was logistics; it was planned that the new bridge would help German troops during the invasion of Iran through the Caucasus.

However, construction did not last long because the Red Army’s counteroffensive halted the works and forced the Germans to blow up an unfinished bridge along with a cableway installation.

The cableway installation was restored in February 1944. Later, it was dismantled and relocated to the Carpathian Mountains, where it was never installed.

On January 25, 1944, even before the liberation of Kerch, the Soviet authorities decided to build a railway bridge across the strait. The work was scheduled to be completed by July 15, 1944.

470 anti-aircraft guns, 294 anti-aircraft machine guns, 132 searchlights, 96 fighters, and 2 RUS-2 radars were used to defend the construction and the crossing.

The construction of the bridge lasted seven months. The first train passed along it on November 3, 1944, despite the fact that at that time the bridge had not yet been completed.

Due to difficult weather conditions and unrealistic timing, construction was divided into several stages.

During one of the storms, a barge with concrete rammed the bridge, which led to the destruction of the pier. Then A. Holin and I. M. Pavlov wrote in their telegram dated December 26, 1944:

“The storm is not stopping for fifteen days in a row. Wind from 7 to 10 points. The whole overpass is icy. Water is thrown over the overpass. We cannot remove the tugboat “Ararat” and the floating crane from the shore. The wind knocks people down; we change them every four hours since they can no longer withstand it. It is impossible to conduct work in the water. Waves are up to 2 meters. Truss bars are over. Restoration of the bridge earlier than two weeks is impossible.”

In the winter, ice ran into the strait, which on February 18, 1945, destroyed 32 pillars. The restoration, which meant the actual rebuilding of the bridge from the beginning, required huge financial costs that the Soviet Union could not afford in the post-war years.

The USSR authorities decided to dismantle the bridge. The pillars that were impeding shipping in that region were removed gradually until 1968.

But the Soviet saga with the bridge did not end there; the idea of building such a transport artery did not stop. In 1947–48, 24 million rubles were spent on preparing the construction of a new bridge, and an additional 50 million rubles were allocated for construction.

However, in 1950, the project was closed, in favor of a ferry crossing.

Annexation of Crimea and construction of a new bridge

Joint Ukrainian-Russian plans to build a bridge that will unite Crimea with Russia have been discussed since 2006.

In 2008, the initiative began to be discussed at the level of prime ministers, and at the same time, Russia included the construction of the bridge in its transport strategy.

In 2010, fugitive Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement on the construction of a bridge over Kerch.

On December 7, 2013, the governments of two countries signed an agreement on joint actions to organize the construction of the bridge. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the agreement in January 2014.

On the day of the illegal temporary inclusion of Crimea in the Russian Federation, the Russians began a competition for the construction of the bridge, cynically referring to the approved agreement.

Construction began in February 2016, and on May 15, 2018, the automobile section was put into operation.

And on December 23, 2019, the railway track for the bridge was opened.

Characteristics of the bridge and its value

The transport hub consists of two parallel bridges: the railway and the road. They begin on the Taman Peninsula, pass through Tuzla Spit and Tuzla Island, and end at Kerch.

The length of the transport crossing within the design is 19 km, the railway bridge is 18.1 km, the automobile bridge is almost 17 km. The width of the roadway with safety lanes is 23.1 m.

The bridge’s capacity is 40 thousand cars per day. The railway bridge can pass trains weighing up to 7.1 thousand tons; daily, the number of trains can reach up to 47 pairs.

This capacity makes the bridge an extremely important transport artery that provides logistics for both the military and the civilian population.

Before the full-scale invasion, the bridge and ferry crossing were the only crossings supporting Crimea logistics. A much smaller, non-significant share belonged to air transportation.

Today, the Russians offer to go through the “safe” temporarily occupied territories, which are under control by the artillery of the Defense Forces of Ukraine.

After the first strike at the bridge, which occurred on October 8, 2022, there was a real logistical and transport collapse.

In addition, the Crimean Bridge is a certain “gateway” to the Sea of Azov, which cuts off access to it by the Ukrainian Navy and significantly complicates the passage of commercial ships.

Bridge Defense

The Crimean Bridge belongs to the list of first category strategic objects, so it must have a powerful defense.

The Russians claim that the Crimean Bridge has a multi-layer defense consisting of air defense and missile defense systems, anti-diversion boats, coastal missile systems, a detachment of combat divers, and the Rosgvardiya.

Near the bridge itself, the Pantsyr anti-aircraft missile and gun systems are located, and the S-400 Triumph SAMs deployed in Feodosia are involved in the protection.

Air defense and missile defense systems are enhanced with the MANPADS units located at three surveillance and security posts.

According to Russian propagandists, the bridge is guarded by the Podsolnukh radar and the Voronezh missile attack early warning radar.

On both sides of the bridge, the Plavnik water area control system is located along with sonars.

According to the Russians, the bridge is also guarded by Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft and Су-27 fighters.

The bridge is guarded by the 39th Marine Detachment (UIN 6942) and the 115th Separate Special Forces Brigade (UIN 6942) of the Russian Guard, located in the city of Kerch.

In addition to them, FSB border guards and representatives of the local police work at checkpoints.

The offshore component is represented by the Grachonok-class anti-saboteur ship.

On the Russian scheme, for some reason, there is a Shtil small rocket ship, which at the time of the scheme’s creation in 2018 was already in reserve and was preparing for disposal.

In addition, according to the Russians, the bridge is protected by the Bal and Bastion anti-ship coastal complexes, and the Kosmos-K satellite provides an overview from space.

The Russians placed decoy vessels from the 436BIS project near the Kerch Bridge to counter anti-ship missiles.

First attack

On the morning of October 8, 2022, at about 6:05 a.m., a powerful explosion occurred on the Crimean Bridge. Simultaneously with the explosion, a train with flammable materials passed on the neighboring railway bed, and the fire engulfed it.

According to the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee, the cause of the explosion was a truck with explosives. A video of the moment of the explosion, which was caught on CCTV cameras, was published on the web.

The car section of the bridge was damaged by the explosion. Some areas have collapsed into the sea. Traffic on the bridge was completely stopped.

Stopping traffic on the bridge led to a traffic collapse; hundreds of trucks and cars got into multi-kilometer traffic jams, and the only way to get to the Crimea was a ferry crossing that could not cope with such a load.

On the evening of October 8, Russian authorities said that they had opened the movement of trains and cars on the Crimean Bridge along the surviving sections. At the same time, buses were not allowed; they were promised to be transported by ferries.

The restoration of the bridge began, in fact, immediately after the destruction of its sections. The first satellite images confirming the start of restoration work appeared on October 13, and they ended on December 5.

There are several versions of what exactly hit the Crimean Bridge. One version claimed it was a truck with explosives that was not seen by scanners at the entrance to the bridge.

The second version says that the truck was unlucky and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time; instead, the explosion occurred due to the detonation of an underwater kamikaze drone, which was indicated by the foam of water under one of the supports before the explosion.

The third and unlikely version was a missile strike, with fake footage circulating on social media.

Second attack

On the night of July 17, 2023, an explosion sounded on the Crimean Bridge. It is stated that it occurred in the area of the 145th pillar from the side of Krasnodar Krai.

Residents of Kerch city reported hearing two explosions at 03:04 and 03:20 local time.

The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation assured that the bridge’s pillars were not destroyed. Instead, the roadbed that was damaged on the spans of the bridge was not subject to restoration.

Local resources reported that the operation of the ferry between the occupied peninsula and Kuban has been stopped. In addition, the movement of trains on the bridge was also temporarily stopped.

Later, Sevastopol media reported about the remains of destroyed drones that washed up on the shore of the city. They are similar to jet skis with 120mm mortar rounds mounted on them.

It is unclear whether these drones could attack the Crimean Bridge. According to Andrii Ryzhenko, the mass of the warhead needed to blow up such a structure should be between 300 and 500 kilograms.

Consequences

The bridge’s capacity gives the enemy the ability to transport tens of thousands of tons of cargo every day.

The destruction or temporary disabling of the Crimean bridge means cutting the base of the transport artery of the Crimea, depriving it of its uninterrupted supply of provisions and fuel.

This also means the changes of military logistics for groups of troops in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions in favor to the Donetsk region.

The Russian authorities already are offering civilians to go and transport goods through the “safe” temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.