This is a new stage in the war of attrition that Ukraine and Russia have been waging since Moscow launched its “special military operation” almost eighteen months ago. On Sunday August 6, the Kiev army bombarded two road bridges linking the Crimean peninsula to the mainland, forcing the Russians to divert their logistical flows to a more western axis and to lengthen their supply lines from the southern front. , where Ukrainian forces have been carrying out several counter-offensive operations since June 4.
Located to the east of the area separating Crimea from Kherson Oblast, two territories occupied by the Russians, the Chonhar and Henichesk bridges were partially destroyed by missile strikes, according to images and videos posted on social media. “The road bridge platform [de Tchonhar] has been damaged”, recognized in particular the governor, pro-Russian, Sergei Aksionov. kyiv had already carried out a first shot on this structure in June, without succeeding in rendering it unusable.
Wear strategy
These bombardments are part of the strategy of attrition adopted since the beginning of the war by the Ukrainian authorities, which consists in favoring strikes on the logistical axes located behind the front, to disrupt or even prevent the supply of enemy troops, rather than confronting them head-on, with the inherent risks of human and material losses. This strategy had notably been successfully adopted in the fall to liberate the city of Kherson and drive the Russians out of the right bank of the Dnieper River.
“Ukrainian strikes on the eastern crossings are likely to disrupt the transport of Russian personnel, materials and equipment from occupied Crimea to Russian defensive operations (…) for an indefinite period”confirms the American think tank Institute for the Study of War in a note published on August 6, adding that troops in Moscow would be forced to “redirect road traffic from shorter eastern routes to longer western routes”.
Occupied since 2014 by pro-Russian forces, Crimea has become in recent months one of Moscow’s favored axes for supplying its troops in southern Ukraine. On several occasions, the forces of kyiv bombarded the railway lines crossing the peninsula or carried out sabotage operations targeting electrical substations to immobilize Russian military trains. The Kerch bridge, which connects southern Crimea to mainland Russia, was also targeted by two attacks, on October 22 and then July 17, without the Ukrainians managing to destroy it.
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