Why Won’t Russia Destroy Ukraine’s Bridges Across The Dnieper?

Only Russian officials know for sure why their country hasn’t ever tried to do this, but the lack of an authoritative explanation this long into the conflict was bound to make many supporters restless.

It’s frustrating for some that Russia hasn’t ever attempted to destroy even one of Ukraine’s twenty bridges over the Dnieper over the past 2,5 years since the special operation began except reportedly when retreating from Kherson and only after Kiev damaged the bridge first. Troops and equipment, including from NATO, continue crossing the river unimpeded. Some have posited outlandish theories for why Russia isn’t interested in stopping this, but the following five reasons are arguably the most cogent:

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1. Russia Doesn’t Want The Global South To Think Poorly Of It

Russia is extremely sensitive to international opinion no matter how much its representatives act like they don’t care. It therefore prioritizes humanitarian and perceived soft power concerns over military ones by refusing to destroy these bridges in order for the Global South not to draw an unflattering comparison between Russian and US bombings. Further inconveniencing Ukrainian civilians, such as by disrupting cross-river supplies and impeding evacuations westward, could harm its image abroad.  

2. Post-Conflict Political & Economic Considerations Still Predominate

On the topic of soft power, Russia still seems to think that reconciliation between the Russian and Ukrainian people is realistic, but this would be much more difficult to achieve than it already is if some Ukrainians were cut off from their families on the other side of the river for the duration of the conflict. There also appears to be a sincere belief in the possibility of the aforesaid reconciliation restoring close pre-conflict trade ties with Ukraine and even the EU, thus requiring intact bridges to fully capitalize on.

3. Ukrainian Air Defense Might Be Too Concentrated Along The Dnieper

Ukrainian air defenses have improved since the early stages of the special operation but are still far less effective than Kiev claims, though their possible concentration along the Dnieper or at least parts of it in defense of some bridges might have deterred Russia from destroying them as the conflict dragged on. If that’s the case, which can only be speculated, then Russia might have concluded that it’s not worth firing so many missiles on saturation strikes against defended bridges which might not even end up destroyed.

4. Russian Missile Production Might Lag Far Behind Its Shell Production

Building upon the aforesaid hypothetical, even though Sky News reported in May that Russia is producing 3x as many shells as the West at ¼ of the cost, its missile production might lag far behind and could be why it doesn’t want to expend what’s needed to destroy at least one possibly defended bridge. Even that might strain its finite reserves, let alone saturating twenty bridges with the intent of destroying them all since taking out just one wouldn’t make much of a difference, so it might have given up on this.

5. The US Might Have Threatened To Intervene If Russia Destroys Those Bridges

Lastly, Russia still thinks that it can keep all of Ukraine out of NATO and Putin remains worried about sparking World War III by miscalculation, so any US threats to conventionally intervene if Russia destroyed those bridges might have deterred it. From the US’ perspective, destroying them early on might have led to a decisive Russian victory, which the West could have then wanted to thwart by salvaging the western half of its geopolitical project at the risk of the hot war that Putin wants to avoid.

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Only Russian officials know for sure why their country hasn’t tried to destroy these bridges, but the lack of an authoritative explanation this long into the conflict was bound to make many supporters restless. If some of the military-strategic reasons are responsible, then they might not want to publicly acknowledge this, thus suggesting that it’ll never happen. If reputational and/or political considerations are to blame, however, then a change in perceptions could prompt a change in policy if the will exists.