Crimean Bridge bombing: first thoughts
A couple of hours ago, I was contacted by WION, the major English language television broadcaster of India, with request that I comment on BBC reports that the Crimean bridge had been bombed and all passenger car traffic on the bridge was suspended.
The BBC prides itself on being “the world leader of Breaking News” and indeed they were true to their word on being first on the story. Their Moscow bureau chief Steve Rosenberg and team report only intermittently from Russia when there is some news development which the editors can give the necessary anti-Putin, anti-Russian spin. The attack on the bridge suited their purposes brilliantly.
Meanwhile, The Financial Times and the New York Times so far have been very circumspect, essentially limiting their coverage to issuing a photo of the damaged section of the bridge which tells its own story: namely that this time it was not the part of the bridge span that soars high above the waterway, as happened in the first rocket attack on the bridge last fall. No, this time it was a low section of the bridge, which presumably will be repaired in a much shorter time frame.
As for the Russians, they have issued almost no report on the bombing other than to tell us that a family of three from the nearby region were victims: the two parents died on the spot from the explosion and their adolescent daughter is now in hospital but her life is not in danger.
The Ukrainians have not yet taken responsibility for the attack but pro-Ukraine information sources tell us that the bridge is a fair target in the war because of its importance in supplying war materiel to the Russian forces engaged in the Ukraine war.
Allow me first to challenge that justification: the traffic capacity on the bridge today is entirely occupied moving vacationers in their cars to and from Crimea. This is peak season and there have been kilometers long lines on the mainland side waiting to access the bridge and reach holiday destinations on the peninsula. Military traffic surely is confined to the separate, parallel railroad bridge, which was not attacked. And so we may conclude that the sole purpose of the attack was purely terrorist, in the sense of instilling dread in the general civilian population of Russia and turning them away from Crimean vacations. At present, the authorities in Crimea say that all vacationers who are now stuck there will have their hotel stays extended automatically by the hoteliers at no expense till a solution for their return is arrived at.
Now, the essential question is what may we expect by way of Russian response to this Ukrainian attack. I will speculate a bit, if you will.
Let us remember that the marine attacks on Russian naval vessels and infrastructure in and around Sevastopol till now have been aided and abetted by the special forces of one country: the United Kingdom. It is an educated guess that the Brits were entirely behind this attack on the Crimean bridge. It would be reasonable to expect that the Kremlin is of the same opinion.
That being the case, the logical Russian response will be to attack BRITISH assets, British infrastructure, not to bomb Kiev into the stone age, which is well within their power.
As the eponymous Russian talk show reminds us “time will tell.”