Ukraine Conflict - "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed"

[Lexx]

There's a video of a burning oil (fuel?) train directly on the bridge. My wild guess is they rigged it to explode.

/Edit: There's also another video where the first explosion happens.

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Lexx

[pmp10]

Bridge strike as a late gift for Putin's birthday.
I understand the sentiment but you'd really think Ukrainians would have bigger priorities. 

 

[Mamoulian War]

14 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Bridge strike as a late gift for Putin's birthday.
I understand the sentiment but you'd really think Ukrainians would have bigger priorities. 

 

Actually Kerch Bridge was priority nr1 since day 1, as this was used as a primary supply route to southern occupied Ukraine. Unfortunately it was always out of range of UA weapons. 

edit: Russia already ordered rationing of goods in groceries in Crimea.

Little bit insight on how it was used, and how it complicates things for Russia.

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Gfted1]

Warning, may be triggering to some:

[Mamoulian War]

The thread has one more explosion on camera. And it looks to big for the Truck Bomb. That video looks to me, that something big hit the bridge from the north… Of course I might be wrong

[kanisatha]

15 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

These are long range bombers. They can hit Ukraine even from Caspian Sea. They never fly into Ukrainian air space. They were also bombing Azovstal in Mariupol with these bombers.

Yup. They're part of Russia's Strategic Aviation Force. Also, Shaykovka is quite far from Ukraine. So that's a huge feather In Ukraine's cap. But the flip side of it is that Russia will retaliate hard for Russian soil being targeted.

[pmp10]

Russians reopening the road traffic already:

Not about to help their reputation for lax safety standards. 

Must be really sure there is no follow-up coming either. 

[Mamoulian War]

This forums really needs facepalm reaction

[Malcador]

Слава в Железнодорожные войска ВС России

I guess

[majestic]

Mostly interesting for @Mamoulian War and @Lexx, I suppose:

For everyone else, Germany's current chief of the Federal Office for Information Security founded a registered cybersecurity lobbying association with wonderfully close ties to the FSB and Russian cybersecurity company Infotecs, which this year, curiously enough, renamed itself to Protelion, and was founded some 30 odd years ago by former KGB mathematician Andrey Chapchaev, holder of the Russian Order For Merit to the Fatherland.

Protelion sells security software and hardened mobile devices, which according to their own advertisments is installed and used by millions of devices in Germany and incudes specialized equipment designed for high profile politicians and government officials. The Federal Office for Information Security more or less declined to comment about the usage of their software and hardware solutions in Germany's government, only saying that none of their products is in use at the the Federal Office for Information Security. Their head aside, who most likely is a product of Protelion, and a nepotism hire, being the son of a prominent CDU politician and so incompetent that he's been called a Cyber-Clown by actual information security experts.

Good job Germany, and here I thought it was embarrassing that our former minister of foreign affairs curtsied before Putin (who came to visit her marriage ceremony and gifted her earrings worth northwards of 50k €).

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by majestic

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

The thread has one more explosion on camera. And it looks to big for the Truck Bomb. That video looks to me, that something big hit the bridge from the north… Of course I might be wrong

If it's too big for a truck bomb it's too big for pretty much anything else. The 1983 Beirut truck bombings used ~10t of explosives, a pretty decent sized ballistic missile like a scud has about 1t, and many have half that (eg Hrim, Tochka). If you've got a rated 20t truck you can put 20t of explosives into it, after all. Alternative would be a boat, though the 'boat' people are pointing at on twitter is clearly a wave (and due to displacement/ buoyancy the boat would have to be a significantly bigger than a truck to carry the same amount of explosive).

The 'secondaries' are the gas line (and possibly the fuel train, since I haven't seen all the videos), which is why it looks like a big fire rather than an explosion. Everything looks like an explosion from the north due to the high wind.

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

If it's too big for a truck bomb it's too big for pretty much anything else. The 1983 Beirut truck bombings used ~10t of explosives, a pretty decent sized ballistic missile like a scud has about 1t, and many have half that (eg Hrim, Tochka). If you've got a rated 20t truck you can put 20t of explosives into it, after all. Alternative would be a boat, though the 'boat' people are pointing at on twitter is clearly a wave (and due to displacement/ buoyancy the boat would have to be a significantly bigger than a truck to carry the same amount of explosive).

The 'secondaries' are the gas line (and possibly the fuel train, since I haven't seen all the videos), which is why it looks like a big fire rather than an explosion. Everything looks like an explosion from the north due to the high wind.

After few hours of theorycrafting, According to some (ex)firefighters in the discussions, the explosion was under the bridge. Their conclusion is, that top of the bridge with traffic lines do not show the marks of explosion on top of the road. So the explosion was definitely not from missile, nor from truck full of explosives.

[Malcador]

OSINT people think too highly of themselves sometimes.

[Zoraptor]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

After few hours of theorycrafting, According to some (ex)firefighters in the discussions, the explosion was under the bridge. Their conclusion is, that top of the bridge with traffic lines do not show the marks of explosion on top of the road. So the explosion was definitely not from missile, nor from truck full of explosives.

Have a look at the sec cam footage from under the rail bridge and from about 23s on you can clearly see that the road markings and much of the right hand side of the road- where the truck was- has been obliterated. Also the road is clearly sagging down, rather than lifted up as it would from an explosion below, and the explosion is not deflected around the road as it would be if it came from below.

I haven't seen the discussion you're referring to specifically, but I'd put money on them looking at the section which has partially collapsed into the sea which is visible in the later stills and still has intact markings. There's actually an entire section behind that has fallen into the sea completely, which is where the explosion occurred. You aren't going to see road marking damage on that because the section simply isn't there to be seen but as above it's visible on the initial video.

The explosion also occurred at an inflection point on the bridge- where it starts to rise to pass over the ship channel; most obvious on the road sec cam footage. That's always a weak spot as you cannot set the sections flush with each other, and suggests very strongly a manual trigger to specifically target that weak point.

Let's be frank here, most of the theorycrafting is desperately trying to find a way that it isn't a suicide attack, but something unmanned. If it were in Afghanistan, Syria, or even Russia a few years ago and we got this footage there would be essentially zero doubt what had happened, it's just because people don't want Ukrainians to be blowing themselves up like ISIS/ Al Qaeda/ Chechens/ LTTE etc that there's arguments going on.

[pmp10]

If NYT is to be believed the bomb was truck-borne and strike organized by Ukrainian intelligence service.

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Let's be frank here, most of the theorycrafting is desperately trying to find a way that it isn't a suicide attack, but something unmanned. If it were in Afghanistan, Syria, or even Russia a few years ago and we got this footage there would be essentially zero doubt what had happened, it's just because people don't want Ukrainians to be blowing themselves up like ISIS/ Al Qaeda/ Chechens/ LTTE etc that there's arguments going on.

We can't be sure the driver was aware of his cargo, but yes - many in the west will not like the similarity. 

[Lexx]

Suicide attacks are bad. Saw some comments on other sites that said the driver was a hero and bs like that, but no, if it was indeed a suicide attack, then the driver wasn't a hero, the driver was stupid as a bag of bread.

[Mamoulian War]

Well, if it was a truck bomb and not something under the bridge, it makes things even more interesting, as the truck was driving from Russia to Crimea. According to BBC Russians are already investigating someone from Krasnodar area.

edit:

probably unrelated to this event, yesterday started big purge in Moscow, and army officers have been detained (report by Ukrainian intelligence, Russian media did not report such things happening). Some Russian milblogers started writing, that this explosion helped Shoygu to stay in his function a little bit longer, and there are starting to be rumours (probably psyops, but in Russia you never know ). That the Crimea Bridge incident was also a part of the ongoing war between Russian MoD, FSB and Prigozhin. Just few hours after the explosion, the security of the bridge was handed to FSB by Putin himself.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[pmp10]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

Suicide attacks are bad. Saw some comments on other sites that said the driver was a hero and bs like that, but no, if it was indeed a suicide attack, then the driver wasn't a hero, the driver was stupid as a bag of bread.

Is it really any worse than remotely blowing-up an unwitting Russian truck driver?

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

probably unrelated to this event, yesterday started big purge in Moscow, and army officers have been detained (report by Ukrainian intelligence, Russian media did not report such things happening). Some Russian milblogers started writing, that this explosion helped Shoygu to stay in his function a little bit longer, and there are starting to be rumours (probably psyops, but in Russia you never know ). That the Crimea Bridge incident was also a part of the ongoing war between Russian MoD, FSB and Prigozhin. Just few hours after the explosion, the security of the bridge was handed to FSB by Putin himself.

I have read reports of both Shoigu and Gerasimov being "purged", but certainly not from any sources that I'd trust, so I'd just wait a bit longer on this. Sounds plausible, sure, but so did the multiple heart attacks.

[bugarup]

In other very russian news, police in Moscow arrested a 10 year old girl for blue and yellow flowers on her profile picture. (Russian text, google translate does decent enough job).

[xzar_monty]

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

Suicide attacks are bad. Saw some comments on other sites that said the driver was a hero and bs like that, but no, if it was indeed a suicide attack, then the driver wasn't a hero, the driver was stupid as a bag of bread.

As a general statement, I agree with this. However, there are circmustances.

In 1993-1994, I worked at an orthopaedic hospital with a separate ward reserved for people coming in from the former Yugoslavia with 0-3 limbs or so, many of them children, some of whom had just learned to walk but then were no longer able to. Let us just say that even for someone personally untouched by the conflict itself, working there was eye-opening on several levels. I don't know if you have family, but given what we've read of the atrocities committed by the Russians, I can imagine several fathers being prepared for anything after being forced to witness all sorts of things done to their wives and children. It's not an excuse, and it doesn't make it all right, but I can see how it might go.

Now, we don't know if it was a suicide attack (although that would seem most likely, in my understanding), and we don't know whether there was anything like this behind it. But I just wanted to point out that there might be circumstances where even that may become a course of action less outrageous than it looks like, simply as an act.

Edited October 9, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Gorgon]

So this time unintended 3 deaths were acceptable. What's the number for next time I wonder. 

[xzar_monty]

13 minutes ago, Gorgon said:

So this time unintended 3 deaths were acceptable. What's the number for next time I wonder. 

If it was a suicide mission, the timing was set so that it would cause the least possible collateral damage (which has also been noted in the speculation).

For Russia, the death of every Ukrainian and every ethnically non-Russian living inside Russia is acceptable, possibly even preferable. So the standards depend on who you ask.

[Gorgon]

17 people were killed in reprisal, and the Kremlin isn't even bothering to call it fake news.

[Gorgon]

This is the process though, it happens in every war. The dehumanization of the enemy and the gradual loss off your own humanity.