UKRAINIAN officials say they will destroy Vladimir Putin’s most beloved bridge by mid-July – giving them roughly 100 days to pull off the near-impossible.
Raining hell on the £3billion structure with Storm Shadow missiles, sea drones and newly arrived F-16s could finally sever Russia’s only land bridge to Crimea, a weapons expert told The Sun.
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For Putin, the 12-mile Kerch bridge – which he hailed a “miracle” upon its completion – is a visible symbol of his sham triumph in “returning” Crimea to its homeland.
For Ukraine, it’s target number one – a grotesque display of 10 years of Russian occupation.
Destroying it would be a major step in winning the war in the Black Sea by cutting off a major Russian military supply route and choking Putin’s war machine.
Bryan Clark, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, believes it is entirely possible Ukraine could do it – but it needs the right weapons.
read more on the kerch bridge
The “most actively defended bridge in the world” could be brought down with a “multi-pronged” big bang-style air and sea attack, he told The Sun.
Clark, an expert in naval operations and electronic warfare, predicted Storm Shadow missiles would be used to pummel its structure, while unmanned explosive boats detonate at its base.
Ukraine’s spy agency, the SBU, have already orchestrated two daring attacks in the past. Both times the bridge was repaired.
A midnight sea drone strike last July caused extensive damage to the road section, hampering Russia’s ability to move tanks and supplies into Crimea.
In October 2022, a truck bomb blasted a gaping hole in the bridge’s centre, setting fire to the railway and sinking parts of the road into the water.
Now, Ukraine is plotting a fierce third attack – one that would take it down for good.
Last week, Kyiv’s military intelligence agency (HUR) declared they will destroy it “in the first half of 2024”.
A HUR official stated Ukraine already had “most of the means to carry out this goal” and that it was part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan to end Russian naval presence in the Black Sea.
Kyiv has “no choice” not to strike targets behind enemy lines, the official told The Guardian, adding that western long-range guided missiles were essential to this plot.
If the Kerch bridge was permanently compromised, Moscow would lose a major military supply line.
For Ukraine, Clark said: “One goal is symbolic, one goal is to prevent the resupply of the Black Sea Fleet and the other is to cut its troops off and drive them off the peninsula.”
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A source close to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence confirmed to The Sun “it’s absolutely doable”.
“It’s just a bridge, it was already damaged significantly several times before.”
But how could Ukraine pull off such a feat?
MISSILE STORM
First, Clark said the heavily-reinforced upper part of the bridge’s structures must be attacked – the roadbeds, the decking of the bridge.
And for that, he said at least 20 to 40 “long-range stand-off weapons with a payload of 500lb plus are needed”.
The only ones in Ukraine’s arsenal that fit the bill are British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles and the French equivalent SCALP.
The £800k bunker-busting weapons are known for their precision and skills in dodging air defence systems – essential to breaking through the shield surrounding occupied Crimea.
They are powerful enough to tear apart the bridge structure, Clark said, and allow “Ukraine to attack the bridge from far enough away to avoid Russian air defences.”
Storm Shadow’s can be launched from over 200 miles away, which saves Ukraine risking its precious, but ageing fleet of Mig-29s and Su-24s – needed to launch such missiles – by flying any closer.
“It is a big concern for Ukraine that they only have a small number of aircraft capable of conducting this attack.
“If they use them and suffer losses, they are unable to conduct future Storm Shadow attacks.”
US-made F-16s sent by European allies are supposed to arrive in the next two months – and analysts believe just a few dozen could turn the tides of the air war into Ukraine’s advantage.
Kyiv could be waiting for their arrival before striking the bridge, Clark suggested. But there’s a snag. F-16s are not yet compatible with Storm Shadows.
Instead, the expert reckons the F-16s might have to be loaded up with GPS-guided munitions “which requires them to get much closer to the target and put themselves at risk.”
That’s the big problem Ukraine has now, he said. “The mismatch between the weapons in their arsenal and the aircraft they have to launch them.”
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DRONE BLAST
Next, Clark stated that once the upper-structures of the bridge had been pummelled by missiles, its base must be attacked.
For this, he believes large unmanned explosive surface vessels would be used to destabilise the supports – likely two to four “in anticipation of losses”.
A huge bomb driven at the bridge support would be the way to go
Bryan Clark
The weapons expert reckons that Ukraine’s ‘Sea Baby’ drones – which have been instrumental in sinking Putin’s Black Sea Fleet – would be “too small, they’re designed to punch holes in ships”.
Clark said: “To take down the foundation of a bridge, you would need a larger, unmanned vessel, like a modified, remote-controlled barge or small container ship.
“Ukraine could drive that at the bridge foundation and detonate it. Russia would try to stop it, but it would be hard to stop a large vessel like that.”
The weapons expert explained that synchronising a storm of drones to coordinate their blast effect on the bridge is incredibly difficult.
So instead, “one huge bomb driven at the bridge support would be the way to go.
“Like we saw with the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, a ship rammed right into its foundation and it all collapsed.”
Clark believes the SBU – like the past raids – would likely be behind such a bold attack.
Our results speak for themselves
SBU Brig-Gen Ivan Lukashevych
“They are the ones who will have to work with technologists to equip a larger vessel for a remote control, like they’ve successfully been doing with small drones so far.”
He stated that Russia would have “difficulty defending” against both the missile strikes and the explosive sea drones.
Both Ukraine’s HUR and SBU have been reached for comment.
The annexation of Crimea
RUSSIA invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014 – sparking ten years of war between the two neighbours.
On February 20, 2014, unmarked Russian tanks moved into the Crimean peninsula and so began a grinding and painful war that would eventually be fought all across Ukraine.
Russian troops dubbed “little green men” appeared in uniforms without insignia or bearing any flags.
In under two months between February and March 2014, Putin’s forces seized strategic sites, installed their own illegally appointed officials and annexed the peninsula.
But two years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 and Crimea – once considered by Vlad a relative safezone – has become dangerously vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
It is now under fire from a wave of Storm Shadow missile and drone strikes, special ops raids and sabotage attacks, while far greater battles are expected.
Experts believe that taking Crimea could be a matter of a “death by a thousand cuts” for Putin as his stronghold is whittled down by the Ukrainians.
Former US General Ben Hodges told The Sun that since 2014, Ukraine’s goal has always been to win back Crimea.
“If Crimea falls, so could Putin,” he explained.
BATTLE FOR CRIMEA
A head-on attack on Crimea has always been considered far too difficult to pull off.
So far, Kyiv’s plan appears to be to besiege the annexed peninsula – launching continuous assaults from land, sea and air – until it becomes untenable for Russian forces to hold it.
Former Ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, previously told The Sun he expects Ukraine’s most foremost goal has always been to isolate the peninsula from Russia by destroying the Kerch Bridge.
With supply lines jeopardised and their forces being driven out, Herbst said: “it would greatly increase the cost of the war for [Putin] and it might well lead to Russia leaving Crimea.”
It’s just a matter of when they have the right ingredients to do it.
But Kyiv has already been proving it is capable of mounting such an offensive action.
Zelensky’s forces have been penetrating Crimea almost consistently, expanding their sabotage operations and developing their own longer-range missiles to strike deep targets deep inside.
The surprise success has been their sea drone attacks.
Ukraine now claims to have sunk a third of Putin’s once fearsome Black Sea Fleet and what’s left of it is in the midst of relocating to a naval base in a breakaway Georgian region.
Brig-Gen. Ivan Lukashevych, of the SBU – who masterminded the ‘Sea Baby’ attack on the Kerch bridge in July 2023 – declared last month: “As long as the enemy is a beast, we will hunt it.”
“Forcing the enemy to flee from the Black Sea was the goal we sought and it was achieved,” he told The Telegraph.
“Our results speak for themselves.”
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Britain’s Storm Shadows
VLADIMIR Putin’s biggest headache – the war-ship sinking, bunker-busting British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles
The UK began supplying Ukraine with the lethal Anglo-French designed GPS-guided missiles in May 2023.
The roughly £3million air-launched projectiles — which can fly in zig-zags at varying altitude – have been busy dodging Russian air defence systems and blasting targets deep behind enemy lines.
They can travel up to 600mph and strike targets up to 350 miles away.
It means they can hit targets at maximum range in just 35 minutes – travelling nearly half the length of the UK.
Defence analyst Paul Beaver told The Sun: “Storm Shadow is giving Ukraine a very significant advantage — and I don’t believe Russian claims that 50 per cent of them are being stopped.
“They can fly around targets before striking to totally blindside enemy forces.”
Last September, Ukraine used Storm Shadow missiles to blow up Russia’s feared Black Sea fleet headquarters in Sevastopol in occupied-Crimea.
The devastating attack destroyed the entire building and killed at least 34 Russian officers including the fleet’s commander.
In December, the same projectiles were used to sink a Russian warship in Crimea.
More than 30 Russian sailors are thought to have been killed in the attack on the Novocherkassk landing ship.
The missiles have also been used to attack the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port cities of Berdiansk and Mariupol.
While the missiles could easily reach targets inside Russia, Ukraine has agreed not to use it against military assets inside the Russian Federation to avoid escalating the war.
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