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The 19 km bridge linking Crimea to Krasnodar region via the Sea of Azov was struck by a massive explosion on Saturday, halting all road and rail traffic. A senior advisor to Ukraine’s president immediately boasted that the attack was just “the beginning,” with Moscow calling the comments proof of Ukrainian authorities’ “terrorist nature.”
The extraordinary attack on the Crimean Bridge takes the security crisis over Ukraine to a dangerous new level, with both sides likely to expand attacks against civilian infrastructure, political observers, journalists and academics have told Sputnik.
“Ukraine’s attack against the Crimean Bridge undoubtedly took place after getting a green light from the United States and using American weapons. The US side intends to further ramp up the degree of escalation of the conflict and military hostilities,” Iranian journalist and Russia expert Ruhollah Modaber says.
Modaber points out that the attack on the bridge came less than two days after President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the West to carry out a ‘preemptive’, possibly nuclear attack against Russia, and shortly after Kiev’s ‘recognition’ of Russia’s Kuril Islands as ‘occupied’ Japanese territories.
“All this shows that the scenario developed for Zelensky by the White House has entered a new dangerous phase, and the Russian government will undoubtedly respond as it sees fit. But there is no doubt that Ukraine today, in accordance with the US plan, is serving as a springboard for expanding the area of large-scale strikes against Russia, and it is impossible to even predict where Ukrainian strikes may take place next,” the observer says.
Political analyst and former MEP Nick Griffin agrees that there is no question of US involvement in the attack on the bridge, but believes that there are important distinctions to be made between that attack and last month’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, for example.
“First, hitting the bridge was an act of war against Russia, while the target of the pipeline sabotage was primarily Germany. Second, the ISIS-style* suicide bomb on the bridge was a very different sort of violence to the highly sophisticated, state-level naval operation in the Baltic,” Griffin says. “Of course, the bridge attack would not have been conducted without CIA approval, but while they are part of the same war it is hard to see any direct connection.”
Both actions were aimed at public opinion, Griffin argues, with the Crimean Bridge bomb meant to anger Russians and push Moscow “into retaliation that can be used as fresh propaganda for increased intervention” by the West, while the sabotage of Nord Stream was meant to deprive Germans of the ability to pressure their government into turning the gas taps back on again in time to save the nation’s industrial base from disintegrating.
Griffin believes the attack against the Crimean Bridge will make it “easier” for Moscow to target Ukrainian infrastructure – something the Russian military has so far generally avoided doing in a bid to limit civilian casualties and economic damage. “The Western public would see such a move as understandable retaliation,” he says.
“This contrasts with, for example, a strike on a NATO base in eastern Poland, which would be very ‘satisfying’, but badly misjudged, sort of response that the Zelensky regime and its US deep state advisors surely hope to see,” the observer suggests.
Ma Youjun, lead expert at Sino-Russian Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation research center at Heilongjiang University in Harbin, China, concurs that the attack on the bridge will likely escalate the crisis.
“Over the past six months, the emphasis has been on observable combat operations. In the future, the situation will most likely be more of a war with an emphasis on aspects such as logistics, infrastructure, and so on. This has already been manifested in the explosions targeting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, and [now] the Crimean Bridge. Obviously, attacks on railway stations, bus stations, railways and roads are possible in the future. A war is being waged to destroy the enemy, and the goal is not limited to destroying his physical combat power,” Ma fears.
The scholar argues that as Western assistance to Kiev continues to increase, “its image as an indirect participant in their war becomes more distinct… Furthermore, Zelensky’s public rejection of negotiations with Russia is not a Ukrainian decision, but the decision of Western countries,” Ma stresses.
Tiberio Graziani, chairman of Vision & Global Trends – an Italy-based international affairs think tank, echoes the concerns expressed above, telling Sputnik he believes the attack on the bridge was “part of a complex plan” to escalate the confrontation between Kiev and Moscow, and “could mark a new phase” of further acts of terror on Russian soil.
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