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.
Another reason is that it concentrates UA forces east of the river and as this is a war of attrition, allowing the bridges to remain means that troops and equipment can be destroyed without stretching Russian supply lines.
Had the Russians blown up the bridges, the UA would by now be dug in west of the river, getting supplies just the same, but Russian army would be extremely stretched and would have a logistical nightmare.
I think it is a masterstroke of strategy. Your point about not blowing up the bridges to appease the US and global south makes no sense to me.
As for the perceived reputational costs and speculative US pressure, we now that Russia is ultra-sensitive to how the Global South sees it and that Putin is doing everything he can to avoid what he fears could be an uncontrollable spiral towards WWIII.
This notion that everything is going according to some "master plan" is, and I'm not trying to mock you, copium. There's no other explanation for it. The theory completely ignores the early stages of the SMO.
Russia of course may afford to sustain great logistics when controlling whole Ukraine east of Dniepr. Yet it’s way cheaper and more effective for Russia to let Ukraine troops fight and lose equipment in the eastern Ukraine. Russian generals simply had chosen the most optimal strategy to perform attrition on UAF.
They didn't choose this strategy from the beginning though, whatever "master plan" they had didn't work out so they had to improvise.
Why does Russia continue trying to advance if it's -- as you and others insist -- content to let Ukrainian forces come to it instead?
Why did it go back into Kharkov Region this spring to carve out a buffer zone for the explicitly stated goal of protecting Belgorod Region?
Do you have any idea how many Russians inside of the country's pre-2014 borders are suffering right now? How many have been killed? Maimed?
Do you know how bad that makes Russia look at home and abroad? How can you with a straight face insist that this is all part of the plan or whatever?
Have you verbalized these ideas with someone, not anyone in your echo chamber, but an average person face-to-face in real life to see how it sounds?
I'm being serious, I don't think anyone who believes that you wrote (and there are many) has ever done that to get real-life feedback from average people.
It's crazy, let me be the first to tell you as a friend, it's batshit crazy in fact. Russia's letting its own civilians be terrorized and killed because of "5D chess"? Come on.
Russian goal is demilitarization of ukr capabilities, by allowing them to come to eastern Ukraine is by far the most efficient way to achieve this. ( and half of NATO )
Agreed this is the most logical explanation, draw the enemy towards you. Appeasing the US and Global south are stretching the limits of plausibility and make zero sense. The other most logical reason is because the russians know there can only be a political solution to this conflict. This involves re-integrating the Ukrainian population either back into the Russian federation or establishing a pro-russian government, this will be much harder to achieve if widespread destruction is inflicted on the civilian population.
Goood point! And remember: you don't need to blow up all the bridges. In order to make UKR logistics a total nightmare you only would need to damage the railway bridges that support the heaviest military traffic. Just by having to switch from rail to truck and then back to rail in order to cross the Dnieper would seriously complicate the movement of troops & materials to the East...
I’d pick one of the best, most heavily used bridges (where temporary replacements are not an option) and absolutely vaporize it. That would get everyone’s attention.
I agree with you both, my arguments were an attempt to explain the calculations that influence decisionmaking on this topic.
For what it's worth, I wish they were blown up right away or at least after Russia's "goodwill gesture" of withdrawing from Kiev and other regions in early 2022.
Once it became clear that peace wasn't in the cards anymore and front had largely frozen, they could have then blown them up or at least tried.
We need to remember that most of the Western elite is still deep down inside very friendly towards the West despite all that's happened.
Many were educated there, vacationed there, attended conferences there, and had close friends and even business contacts there.
If they thought that blowing up those bridges would ruin any possible peace deal, then they might decide not to try to touch them.
Also remember that the military is disciplined and follows the political leadership's orders, which is in turn influenced by this same Western-affiliated elite.
They're not going to unilaterally blow up the bridges or at least try and then deal with the fallout at home afterwards unlike in other countries perhaps.
And even with the FABs now being introduced, my view is that the continue predominance of (IMO misguided and outdated, albeit well-intentioned, political and soft power) considerations are responsible for why they're still not used to destroy those bridges.
Because as you rightly implied, Russia has the capabilities, it just doesn't have the will, and therein lies the subject of debate: why won't it take out those bridges despite being able to 2,5 years into this conflict?
This is of course a pivotal issue of the ongoing "not-war" in Ukraine.
All your points seem plausible but not reeeeally very convincing, IMO.
Re. the Global South, i think we can all agree that it is not the same image to the rest of the world for the US to wage an unprovoked war against Irak than for Russia to fight a war literally on its doorstep.
Re. reconciliation: i don't know at all the Slavic culture, but I would guess that killing hundreds of thousands of your people is literally waaay worse than seeing some infrastructure blown up.
Re. UKR AD: if this were really the case, why did it fail to protect the power plants, including hydro PP, that are even more critical?
Re. US red lines: it would be very rich indeed if the UKR bridges over the Dnieper were considered red lines for the US while with the other hand aiming to destroy the Crimea bridge....
For me the only remaining reason would be: Russia's oligarchs / .gov do want to somehow win the not-war without seriously damaging their economic interests...
I get your points, they're plausible, but here are my brief responses:
Re: Global South, destroying infrastructure and "trapping" civilians on one side of the country could easily be exploited by the West to apply more pressure on Russia's partners, which Russia is very sensitive about and that's why it's ramped up "information operations" in that part of the world over the past 2,5 years
Re: reconciliation, killing combatants is seen by Russia as different from killing civilians. I don't agree with their perspective and actually share yours on this, but decisionmakers continue clinging to what I respectfully believe are outdated notions, which stem from Putin's magnum opus in summer 2021 about the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.
Re: UKR AD, that's a solid point, but Russia also isn't trying to create an environmental catastrophe by destroying Ukraine's hydro PP. Some AD might be guarding bridges and increasing the number of missiles needed to destroy them to unacceptable levels for Russia. As for its regular power plants, the damage Russia inflicts is usually repaired, though the cumulative effects are reportedly finally being felt.
Re: US red lines, I've begun arguing since early this year after Macron's intervention threat that the only scenario in which this *might* happen is if Russia crosses the Dnieper in force since NATO doesn't want to lose its full investment into Ukraine and would thus be prone to seriously considering occupying the western half by beating Russia to the punch.
Some oligarchic interests might be at play, and I also agree that some people here really don't want to win. They don't want to lose, but they're also not trying as hard as if they sincerely believed that this was an existential conflict like Putin and company claim. Still, I don't think that's the main issue here, but rather a contributing one to the points I detailed.
Maybe they realize they're going to win and want to preserve it for the victory party afterwards. Sort of like getting a divorce and you know you're going to get the house - why destroy something you'll have to fix later? Also, on a more morbid note, it keeps the UA troops headed towards the meat grinder...
It's been 2,5 years, they could have destroyed these bridges early on if they really were planning for a protracted conflict this entire time (after all, why let your enemy continue moving troops and equipment to the front unimpeded!?), and Ukraine or even NATO could bomb them if Ukraine was forced to retreat across the Dnieper.
Russia was very careful in naming the conflict an SMO. While Russia has attacked other Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly energy, perhaps their definition excludes key transportation infrastructure. Mr Putin strike me as a stickler for certain details like this.
I would vote the pressure from the global South onto Putin is the dominant factor. Putin knows the struggle will be longer and harder than most people thought. Therefore, the moral and actual support from the global south is invaluable. A cautious execution will be slow but more likely to be steady. After all, there is only one Russia. And I don't see China, India, or Brazil anywhere close to resist Western pressure without a prosperous Russia. At the same time, Russia cannot do without the global South to survive this long struggle. There is no winning with a nuclear-armed hostile opponent. Against the global imperialism, to survive and prosper is the winning.
While the approach Russia has taken does seem potentially costly in terms of Russian soldier lives and the time to prosecute thie SMO, I do think no matter what the entire conflict was always a no win situation for Russia to some extent. I can also say from a western perspective, Russia and Mr Putin have won admiration and respect for his restraint from those of us who are paying attention, especially and in stark contrast to Israel in not wantonly killing civilians. As a youth, I never imagined an America as so utterly unjustified, indeed reckless and destructive, as it now seems. Reality it seems is nearly the exact opposite of what I thought in those days. Russia would indeed be entirely justified in blowing up those bridges and bombing Kiev back to the stone age, but it is now looked at with respect in the eyes of any fair-minded, objective western observer. The west, meanwhile, looks like its run by absolute psychopaths. Perhaps it is this grim calculus, a moral victory, that justifies the lack of aggression. It would be disappointing, though not entirely surprising, if some less idealistic rationale (say, oligarch interests) were behind it all, though we can always attribute any cause of avoided suffering and death to the works of God happening in mysterious ways.
I think the most likely reason is that it’s simply too difficult to destroy them with a missile attack.
If there was some way of hitting them from beneath with several tons of HE you could probably crack the concrete and do a fair bit of damage, but to bring them down through collapsing one or more spans would be very challenging.
I don't think so since Ukraine destroyed the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson with HIMARS in summer 2022, after which Russia reportedly finished the job when it withdrew across the River.
As someone who handles explosives, I have to differ with your assessment of bridge demolition feasibility.
Without plenty of time and unhindered access to set demolition charges including drilling supports & loading/tamping of shot holes, tamping very large surface charges or setting linear cutting charges on longitudinal beams, all that can usually be done to such over engineered reenforced concrete + steel bridges with general purpose bombs/tactical missiles is wrecking the bridge decks. For (non suspension) bridges such as I was seeing in videos, the span supports may be damaged enough to de rate but usually can support quickly laid down decking patches over whatever holes can be made, the supporting piers are nearly impossible to destroy with such aerial munitions.
Suspension/lift/swing bridges all have weak points which can be exploited to make parts of them unuseable if accurate guided munitions are available, dropping suspended spans may be "do-able" with a lot of skill and some luck, but the majority of non suspension spans are VERY hard to fully demolish without control of the structure, free access to the undersides and some engineering knowledge. All of which the Russians had before they dropped that bridge in Kherson-
Another reason is that it concentrates UA forces east of the river and as this is a war of attrition, allowing the bridges to remain means that troops and equipment can be destroyed without stretching Russian supply lines.
Had the Russians blown up the bridges, the UA would by now be dug in west of the river, getting supplies just the same, but Russian army would be extremely stretched and would have a logistical nightmare.
I think it is a masterstroke of strategy. Your point about not blowing up the bridges to appease the US and global south makes no sense to me.
What you described is the emerging revisionist narrative of how everything unfolded, which doesn't hold up to scrutiny and which I debunked here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/korybko/p/what-would-really-be-achieved-by?r=i1iin&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=69411110
Russia is literally the world's largest country, it could have decent military logistics if it controlled all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper.
As for the perceived reputational costs and speculative US pressure, we now that Russia is ultra-sensitive to how the Global South sees it and that Putin is doing everything he can to avoid what he fears could be an uncontrollable spiral towards WWIII.
This notion that everything is going according to some "master plan" is, and I'm not trying to mock you, copium. There's no other explanation for it. The theory completely ignores the early stages of the SMO.
Russia of course may afford to sustain great logistics when controlling whole Ukraine east of Dniepr. Yet it’s way cheaper and more effective for Russia to let Ukraine troops fight and lose equipment in the eastern Ukraine. Russian generals simply had chosen the most optimal strategy to perform attrition on UAF.
They didn't choose this strategy from the beginning though, whatever "master plan" they had didn't work out so they had to improvise.
Why does Russia continue trying to advance if it's -- as you and others insist -- content to let Ukrainian forces come to it instead?
Why did it go back into Kharkov Region this spring to carve out a buffer zone for the explicitly stated goal of protecting Belgorod Region?
Do you have any idea how many Russians inside of the country's pre-2014 borders are suffering right now? How many have been killed? Maimed?
Do you know how bad that makes Russia look at home and abroad? How can you with a straight face insist that this is all part of the plan or whatever?
Have you verbalized these ideas with someone, not anyone in your echo chamber, but an average person face-to-face in real life to see how it sounds?
I'm being serious, I don't think anyone who believes that you wrote (and there are many) has ever done that to get real-life feedback from average people.
It's crazy, let me be the first to tell you as a friend, it's batshit crazy in fact. Russia's letting its own civilians be terrorized and killed because of "5D chess"? Come on.
Russian goal is demilitarization of ukr capabilities, by allowing them to come to eastern Ukraine is by far the most efficient way to achieve this. ( and half of NATO )
Agreed this is the most logical explanation, draw the enemy towards you. Appeasing the US and Global south are stretching the limits of plausibility and make zero sense. The other most logical reason is because the russians know there can only be a political solution to this conflict. This involves re-integrating the Ukrainian population either back into the Russian federation or establishing a pro-russian government, this will be much harder to achieve if widespread destruction is inflicted on the civilian population.
I’d buy all those arguments earlier in the SMO but not now.
Where’s part 2? 😉
Seriously though why not just pick one and drop it? Doesn’t stop anything but does slow down everything plus makes a statement.
Goood point! And remember: you don't need to blow up all the bridges. In order to make UKR logistics a total nightmare you only would need to damage the railway bridges that support the heaviest military traffic. Just by having to switch from rail to truck and then back to rail in order to cross the Dnieper would seriously complicate the movement of troops & materials to the East...
I’d pick one of the best, most heavily used bridges (where temporary replacements are not an option) and absolutely vaporize it. That would get everyone’s attention.
I agree with you both, my arguments were an attempt to explain the calculations that influence decisionmaking on this topic.
For what it's worth, I wish they were blown up right away or at least after Russia's "goodwill gesture" of withdrawing from Kiev and other regions in early 2022.
Once it became clear that peace wasn't in the cards anymore and front had largely frozen, they could have then blown them up or at least tried.
We need to remember that most of the Western elite is still deep down inside very friendly towards the West despite all that's happened.
Many were educated there, vacationed there, attended conferences there, and had close friends and even business contacts there.
If they thought that blowing up those bridges would ruin any possible peace deal, then they might decide not to try to touch them.
Also remember that the military is disciplined and follows the political leadership's orders, which is in turn influenced by this same Western-affiliated elite.
They're not going to unilaterally blow up the bridges or at least try and then deal with the fallout at home afterwards unlike in other countries perhaps.
Tried would be the operative term.
At that time Western Ukraine was loaded with AD, missiles were in short supply and FABs hadn’t been introduced.
And even with the FABs now being introduced, my view is that the continue predominance of (IMO misguided and outdated, albeit well-intentioned, political and soft power) considerations are responsible for why they're still not used to destroy those bridges.
Because as you rightly implied, Russia has the capabilities, it just doesn't have the will, and therein lies the subject of debate: why won't it take out those bridges despite being able to 2,5 years into this conflict?
This is of course a pivotal issue of the ongoing "not-war" in Ukraine.
All your points seem plausible but not reeeeally very convincing, IMO.
Re. the Global South, i think we can all agree that it is not the same image to the rest of the world for the US to wage an unprovoked war against Irak than for Russia to fight a war literally on its doorstep.
Re. reconciliation: i don't know at all the Slavic culture, but I would guess that killing hundreds of thousands of your people is literally waaay worse than seeing some infrastructure blown up.
Re. UKR AD: if this were really the case, why did it fail to protect the power plants, including hydro PP, that are even more critical?
Re. US red lines: it would be very rich indeed if the UKR bridges over the Dnieper were considered red lines for the US while with the other hand aiming to destroy the Crimea bridge....
For me the only remaining reason would be: Russia's oligarchs / .gov do want to somehow win the not-war without seriously damaging their economic interests...
I get your points, they're plausible, but here are my brief responses:
Re: Global South, destroying infrastructure and "trapping" civilians on one side of the country could easily be exploited by the West to apply more pressure on Russia's partners, which Russia is very sensitive about and that's why it's ramped up "information operations" in that part of the world over the past 2,5 years
Re: reconciliation, killing combatants is seen by Russia as different from killing civilians. I don't agree with their perspective and actually share yours on this, but decisionmakers continue clinging to what I respectfully believe are outdated notions, which stem from Putin's magnum opus in summer 2021 about the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.
Re: UKR AD, that's a solid point, but Russia also isn't trying to create an environmental catastrophe by destroying Ukraine's hydro PP. Some AD might be guarding bridges and increasing the number of missiles needed to destroy them to unacceptable levels for Russia. As for its regular power plants, the damage Russia inflicts is usually repaired, though the cumulative effects are reportedly finally being felt.
Re: US red lines, I've begun arguing since early this year after Macron's intervention threat that the only scenario in which this *might* happen is if Russia crosses the Dnieper in force since NATO doesn't want to lose its full investment into Ukraine and would thus be prone to seriously considering occupying the western half by beating Russia to the punch.
Some oligarchic interests might be at play, and I also agree that some people here really don't want to win. They don't want to lose, but they're also not trying as hard as if they sincerely believed that this was an existential conflict like Putin and company claim. Still, I don't think that's the main issue here, but rather a contributing one to the points I detailed.
Thanks for the clarification, and, yes, this makes more sense for me!
You're welcome!
Maybe they realize they're going to win and want to preserve it for the victory party afterwards. Sort of like getting a divorce and you know you're going to get the house - why destroy something you'll have to fix later? Also, on a more morbid note, it keeps the UA troops headed towards the meat grinder...
It's been 2,5 years, they could have destroyed these bridges early on if they really were planning for a protracted conflict this entire time (after all, why let your enemy continue moving troops and equipment to the front unimpeded!?), and Ukraine or even NATO could bomb them if Ukraine was forced to retreat across the Dnieper.
If the ukrainian retreat they will destroy the bridges!
IMO the most probable logic is let Russian oligarch continue business as usual!
They are the truwe bosses of Russia.
Russia was very careful in naming the conflict an SMO. While Russia has attacked other Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly energy, perhaps their definition excludes key transportation infrastructure. Mr Putin strike me as a stickler for certain details like this.
6. Russia still believes it can win the war whenever it wants, and plans to use the bridges in a sudden blitzkreig.
I would vote the pressure from the global South onto Putin is the dominant factor. Putin knows the struggle will be longer and harder than most people thought. Therefore, the moral and actual support from the global south is invaluable. A cautious execution will be slow but more likely to be steady. After all, there is only one Russia. And I don't see China, India, or Brazil anywhere close to resist Western pressure without a prosperous Russia. At the same time, Russia cannot do without the global South to survive this long struggle. There is no winning with a nuclear-armed hostile opponent. Against the global imperialism, to survive and prosper is the winning.
While the approach Russia has taken does seem potentially costly in terms of Russian soldier lives and the time to prosecute thie SMO, I do think no matter what the entire conflict was always a no win situation for Russia to some extent. I can also say from a western perspective, Russia and Mr Putin have won admiration and respect for his restraint from those of us who are paying attention, especially and in stark contrast to Israel in not wantonly killing civilians. As a youth, I never imagined an America as so utterly unjustified, indeed reckless and destructive, as it now seems. Reality it seems is nearly the exact opposite of what I thought in those days. Russia would indeed be entirely justified in blowing up those bridges and bombing Kiev back to the stone age, but it is now looked at with respect in the eyes of any fair-minded, objective western observer. The west, meanwhile, looks like its run by absolute psychopaths. Perhaps it is this grim calculus, a moral victory, that justifies the lack of aggression. It would be disappointing, though not entirely surprising, if some less idealistic rationale (say, oligarch interests) were behind it all, though we can always attribute any cause of avoided suffering and death to the works of God happening in mysterious ways.
What about let Russian oligarch continue business as usual?😂
I think the most likely reason is that it’s simply too difficult to destroy them with a missile attack.
If there was some way of hitting them from beneath with several tons of HE you could probably crack the concrete and do a fair bit of damage, but to bring them down through collapsing one or more spans would be very challenging.
I don't think so since Ukraine destroyed the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson with HIMARS in summer 2022, after which Russia reportedly finished the job when it withdrew across the River.
@Andrew Korybko
As someone who handles explosives, I have to differ with your assessment of bridge demolition feasibility.
Without plenty of time and unhindered access to set demolition charges including drilling supports & loading/tamping of shot holes, tamping very large surface charges or setting linear cutting charges on longitudinal beams, all that can usually be done to such over engineered reenforced concrete + steel bridges with general purpose bombs/tactical missiles is wrecking the bridge decks. For (non suspension) bridges such as I was seeing in videos, the span supports may be damaged enough to de rate but usually can support quickly laid down decking patches over whatever holes can be made, the supporting piers are nearly impossible to destroy with such aerial munitions.
Suspension/lift/swing bridges all have weak points which can be exploited to make parts of them unuseable if accurate guided munitions are available, dropping suspended spans may be "do-able" with a lot of skill and some luck, but the majority of non suspension spans are VERY hard to fully demolish without control of the structure, free access to the undersides and some engineering knowledge. All of which the Russians had before they dropped that bridge in Kherson-