Revenge or the Beginning of a Mutiny in Russia?

Ivan Sichen

Last week, the main event in Russia’s war against Ukraine was the explosion on the Crimean bridge across the Kerch Strait. This fact is no less important than the counterattack of Ukrainian troops in the east and south of our state. Let us consider in more detail the consequences of blowing up the Crimean bridge, both of military and political nature. And how Russia is able to react to this situation. Especially taking into consideration the massive missile strikes on Ukraine on October 10, 2022.

Ukrainian and world media have already provided preliminary assessments of the consequences of the explosion on the Crimean bridge. However, they are quite fragmented and do not allow to see the whole picture. Let’s try to recreate it.

The explosion of the Crimean bridge caused a real shock in the Russian society and panic in Crimea, which local residents began to leave en masse. Of course, Russia did not rule out such a possibility, so it significantly strengthened the forces and means of protecting the bridge. Currently, the tasks of its protection and defense are carried out by the units of Rosgvardia (Russian Guards — Transl.), forces and means of air defense, including the S-400 and Buk-M3 systems, ships and boats of the Coast Guard of the Border Guard Service of the FSB and the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, anti-sabotage defense of the Black Sea Fleet, etc.

At the same time, the occupiers were confident that Ukraine would not dare to “encroach” on the Crimean bridge due to the threat of a military response from Russia. Especially as Moscow in 2014 brought Crimea and its infrastructure under its jurisdiction as a Russian region, established its power there, and also distributed Russian passports to the majority of the peninsula’s population. As a result, Russia has actually extended to the Crimea the provisions of its military doctrine, which allow to use nuclear weapons, including to protect the occupied peninsula.

However, all this turned out to be in vain. The Crimean bridge was nevertheless blown up. According to the main version, by Ukrainian saboteurs who managed to take out a truck with explosives on it. And the bridge guards could not prevent this. According to some estimates, the truck freely passed the checkpoint, where vehicles are inspected for explosives, thanks to the bribery of its staff. This time such a common phenomenon for Russia as bribery was used against Russia itself for military purposes. The checkpoint personnel are already detained by the FSB of the Russian Federation.

The date of sabotage act was chosen quite symbolically — on the day of Vladimir Putin’s 70^th birthday. This is a gift to the Russian dictator and a reminder that it is time for him to leave his post, because his military adventure has actually failed. Or, at least, costs Russia too much. Putin and his army not only cannot defeat Ukraine, they cannot keep and defend the already captured either.

Although it is possible that the explosion of the Crimean bridge was not carried out by Ukraine, but became a manifestation of aggravation of contradictions between different politico-oligarchic or military/FSB clans in Russia. In previous publications, we have already raised this topic, but let’s briefly recall its main essence. As you know, neither Putin’s environment, nor, the Russian authorities in general have long had no unity. Some of the above-mentioned clans support Putin and call for the continuation of the war against Ukraine. Others are for reaching compromises with the West, including at the expense of the Ukrainian issue. Besides, the confrontation between Russia’s various security forces is intensifying, each shifting to the other the responsibility for failures at the front in Ukraine. Each of them is trying to take a leading position in the system of Russian power, and their leaders — to get closer to Putin and strengthen their influence (and with it — access to cash flows).

Evidence of this was the events of October 8. 2022, in Moscow, when the Kremlin, according to many Telegram channels, allegedly decided to dismiss Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov. To suppress the possible resistance of the military, units of Rosgvardia from the Dzerzhinsky Division were brought to the centre of Moscow and blocked the streets and surrounded the buildings of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. In response, the Command of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation put military units near Moscow at high alert. The incident was hushed up.

Shoigu and Gerasimov remain in their positions for the time being. At least, their resignation is not officially announced. Only the Commander of the “special operation” in Ukraine was replaced. And the responsibility for the protection of the Crimean bridge was transferred from Rosgvardia to the FSB, which in no way contributed to the improvement of their relations.

All this reminds the similar events in Moscow after the death of Stalin in 1953, when Khrushchev and Beria were fighting for power. True, then the situation was somewhat different. By order of the then Commander of the Ground Forces of the USSR Zhukov, on the day of Beria’s arrest, units of the Tamanskaya and Kantemirovskaya Divisions were brought to Moscow, blocked the locations of the above-mentioned Dzerzhinsky Division (at that time it was part of the internal troops), as well as the building of the USSR Ministry of State Security.

One way or another, the announcement of partial mobilization, failure at the front and, especially, the blowing up of the Crimean bridge, had led to a rapid drop in Vladimir Putin’s rating, which fell to the lowest level since the beginning of the pension reform in Russia in 2019. In the Russian information field, Putin personally began to be openly criticized. At this, by both — liberals and Russian nationalists, who put forward a demand to him to provide a tough response to Ukraine.

Such a response, or rather, revenge for the explosion of the Crimean bridge, was a massive missile attack on Ukraine on October 10, 2022. The strikes were inflicted exclusively on residential areas of Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure, primarily of the energy sector (and this is on the eve of winter). On October 10, 2022, during a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Putin directly acknowledged this.

But then, Russia cannot answer us with anything else. Mobilization is almost disrupted. They planned to call 300 thousand people. Then they reported on the mobilization of 200 thousand, and that the mobilization plan was fulfilled. In reality, only about 90 thousand were drafted. But they don’t even know how to equip, arm, clothe, feed and where to train them. At this, new units, as a rule, are not formed of the mobilized. Most of them are sent without training to replenish units of Russian troops defeated in Ukraine.

As for nuclear weapons, their possible use will be the final end of the Putin regime. Putin has been warned about this by both, the United States and China, which for some reason is still considered to be Russia’s ally.

And in conclusion, I would like to say a few words about the consequences of blowing up the Crimean bridge. Through it, about 75 % of the needs of the Russian occupation forces in Crimea and in the south of Ukraine were actually addressed. However, most of the supply was organized through its railway part. But it, unfortunately, did not suffer much damage. The traffic has already been restored, albeit to a limited extent. Cars also began to pass through the surviving part of the bridge. And trucks are sent to a ferry crossing, which has limited capacity.

That is, the explosion of the bridge had mostly political significance, which is quite important. And finally, the volume of damage to the Crimean bridge proves its extremely low quality. Putin’s personal friend Arkady Rotenberg, the owner of the company that built the Crimean bridge, is already being asked why the bridge collapsed while the Antonovskyi Bridge in Kherson, built in Soviet times, did survive after dozens of Ukrainian strikes with American missiles. As survived the glass bridge near the Arch of the Freedom of the Ukrainian people in Kyiv.

As a result of a missile attack on Kyiv, the building of the Consulate of Germany was damaged. In Germany, it has already been proposed to send several Leopard tanks in order to look at the consequences of the destruction. Well, we’re looking forward to them. As we are looking forward to the promised air defense systems.

It is high time for the world community to understand that urgent need for the weapons requested by Ukraine to stop the rashist terror. As President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said: “If terror remains unpunished, if a terrorist manages to intimidate so much that someone in the world just wants to agree to turn a blind eye to terror, then this will be a loss — a loss of freedom, a loss of humanity and a loss of democracy. This is exactly what Russia wants. It is for this purpose that it needs all this terror — from missile strikes to global crises provoked by a terrorist state”.