Ukraine War Day #294: Melitopol Bridge No Big Deal

Dear Readers:

This post will complete a sort of trilogy on the “Broken Bridge” theme. The previous two were written from a Negative Nelly point of view, listing all the things to worry about.

Now we turn the mic over to Positive Polly, who asserts that everything is actually okay.

We shall start with this short piece by reporter Alexei Degtyarev. I translate in full:

Each charge [of dynamite] placed by Ukrainian saboteurs under the bridge near Melitopol, is estimated at 15-20 kg of the TNT equivalent, according the Acting Governor of Zaporozhie Oblast, Evgeny Balitsky.

The explosion of the bridge in the settlement of Konstantinovka, which is a suburb of Melitopol, this was simply a “mindless terrorist act”, directed mostly against peaceful civilians, since the bridge did not present any strategic importance, according to Balitsky.

“No, it’s gonna be fine!”

“Everything is fucked.”

He added that investigators are on the job, seeking out those responsible for this; and, once found, the perps will be punished “to the fullest extent of the law.”

Recall that the Ukrainian saboteurs damaged this bridge in Konstantinovka. From what we know so far, the dynamite charges were placed against the very pillars of the structure.

yalensis: In other words, Ukrainian terrorists learned their lesson from the Kerch Bridge: If you are going to bring down a bridge, you need to go after the supports. Anyhow, this positive spin has come out to counter gleeful Ukrainian propaganda of the past few days, which claims the attack on the Melitopol Bridge is just Step #1 of their Big Plan to re-conquer Crimea. I listed out the various steps in my previous blogposts, so I won’t bother repeating that.

Next we have this longer piece by reporter Alyona Zadorozhnaya. Her main source is an interview with Vladimir Rogov, who heads the pro-Russian political movement “We Are With Russia” in the Russian-controlled chunk of Zaporozhie. Rogov concedes that the Ukrainians believe they are well on the way to cutting off Russia’s land bridge to Crimea. “However, they didn’t take into account that the land bridge has more than one route.” In other words, there are built-in redundancies, so that the loss of that one bridge is just an inconvenience, but not necessarily catastrophic.

Rogov’s Analysis Of The Sitrep

Here is Rogov’s analysis, in more depth, of what is going on currently on the Zaporozhie part of the front.

Vladimir Rogov

Rogov: Recently our opponent has activated, along the whole line of contact, the artillery shelling of our positions. These strikes are coming from the areas of Oktyabrsky and Novogorovka. At the same time, our air defenses are shooting down their drones, which they are applying in the Northwest part of the region, on the border between Zaporozhie and Donetsk Oblasts.

In that same area the Ukrainians have made several attempts to attack our positions. Each time our return artillery fire forced them back to their starting positions. Nonetheless, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) never abandon their hope of crossing over from the Right Bank of the Dniepr and setting a landing party in the area of Energodar.

The good news is the record tempo with which Ukrainian artillery complexes are being destroyed, one by one. “Literally in the course of three days we liquidated around 15 of these systems, which included several HIMARS. Their [artillery] strike against Melitopol [yalensis: in which Ukry claimed to have destroyed a barracks chock full of Wagnerites] is their answer to us. They are trying to prove that they still have artillery and can strike where and when they please.

“Unfortunately, the enemy are expecting, in the coming weeks, deliveries of new weapons. However, they are experiencing some logistics issues, especially after our strikes at the transportation infrastructure around the area of Krivoy Rog. For example, it is harder for them to ship new tanks in.

“We also managed to destroy an enemy weapons cache, as a result of which the 102rd Brigade of UAF Territorial Defense was short on shells for a period of time. After that, the intensity of their shelling of our positions decreased sharply, but only for a while.

Konstantinovka Bridge near Melitopol: dynamite was placed against the pillars.

“And here I may say, with guarded optimism, that on the Zaporozhie front the initiative is slowly but surely, shifting in our favor. This is connected to the fact that our fighters already know the front line quite well, they have all the action split up into quadrants, and we are also finessing our ties and communication with that part of the local population who still live under Kiev’s control.

“The blowing up of that bridge in Melitopol – that was an attempt on the part of the UAF to probe our logistics. Just as they did in Kherson, the enemy wants to destroy the supply chain that brings in vital goods, food, medicines, and also military equipment.

“It is important to know that this is not the only supply route into Melitopol. In other words, this is factually more damaging to the comfort of the residents of Melitopol and Berdyansk, their ability to communicate with each other. Now they will have to make a detour of maybe a dozen or two kilometers, in order to get from one town to the other.

“It is remarkable that, after committing this act, the enemy started to crow about cutting off our land bridge to Crimea. That’s just wishful thinking on their part, because the main supply routes from mainland Russia to Crimea actually go a different way. Nonetheless, we must remain vigilant at all times.”