Impact of Kerch bridge blast will be felt all the way to the Kremlin

Twelve miles long and taller than the Statue of Liberty, the Kerch bridge to the occupied Crimean peninsular was the jewel in the crown of Vladimir Putin’s infrastructure projects – described in the Russian media as the “construction of the century”.

When the Russian president opened its road span on 15 May 2018, driving an orange Kamaz truck across the bridge, he boasted of its significance.

“In different historical epochs, even under the tsar priests, people dreamed of building this bridge. Then they returned to this [idea] in the 1930s, the 40s, the 50s. And finally, thanks to your work and your talent, the miracle has happened.”

Heavily defended since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was seen as important enough for Moscow to warn of reprisals if the bridge was targeted.

But on Saturday morning, in circumstances that are still unclear, a huge explosion rocked the Kerch bridge, collapsing part of the road carriageway into the Kerch Strait below and setting fire to fuel tankers on a train crossing the second railway span of the bridge.

The enormous significance of the damage to the bridge, obliquely claimed by a senior adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, will become clear in the coming hours and days – not least whether Moscow feels compelled to retaliate for the attack.

In the immediate aftermath, many analysts were quick to note the timing of the blast, occurring the day after Vladimir Putin marked his 70th birthday amid a series of humiliating recent defeats on the eastern and southern fronts of his war of aggression against Ukraine that has seen large scale Russian retreats.

It comes hard on the heels of Russian nuclear brinkmanship and a barely a week after Putin signed a decree illegally claiming to have annexed four Ukrainian provinces.

But the implied rebuff of the apparent attack is more significant than simply symbolic. The bridge was a key logistical supply line not only for Russian forces in the occupied Crimea but also elsewhere in southern Ukraine where Russian forces have been in retreat in recent days, even as the main supply line from mainland Russian, including a train line to Melitopol, has come under increasing Ukrainian pressure.

That significance has not been lost on residents of Crimea who, as news spread, rushed to petrol stations to fill up their cars.

And while there are other ways of supplying the Crimea, including its ports, damage to the bridge is hugely important to a place that until very recently was seen by Russia as being beyond the reach of Ukraine.

That has changed in recent months, however. An attack on the naval airbase at Saky in August, led Russian tourists to flee Crimea’s beaches en masse, jamming the bridge with miles-long tailbacks. Some Russian naval forces appear also to have been discreetly redeployed as the war has inched ever closer.

How Moscow responds is the big question, but one that had been looming ever more powerfully as Ukraine has successfully pressed its counteroffensive in recent weeks amid mounting disquiet among Russian elites and commentators over the conduct of Putin’s war.

In April, Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and prime minister, and currently deputy chair of the Security Council of Russia, said: “One of the Ukrainian generals talked about the need to strike at the Crimean Bridge. I hope he understands what the retaliatory target will be.”

At the very least it is a huge propaganda victory for Kyiv that will be held up as a sign that not only is it unafraid of Putin’s nuclear threats but that it believes it is winning the war.