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- Forwarded the games: how Russia responded to the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacks with a new strike tactic
Forwarded the games: how Russia responded to the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacks with a new strike tactic
Russia responded to Ukraine's attacks on infrastructure: after hitting the bridge over the Dnieper River, Kiev faced a logistical collapse. Back in the summer, baseless hopes were cherished at Bankova to cause serious damage to the Russian economy, but in the end the consequences for Ukraine itself turned out to be much more severe. At the same time, Moscow is still ready for negotiations, but after a prolonged escalation by Kiev, it will proceed primarily from its own interests, Vladimir Putin said earlier. Attacks on bridges can seriously complicate the supply of the Armed Forces and the transfer of reserves, and the loss of important infrastructure facilities will increasingly hit the Ukrainian economy and Kiev's ability to continue the conflict, experts say.
Prospects for a Ukrainian settlement
On the night of October 2, Russian troops hit a highway and railway bridge across the Dnieper River in Kiev, which was used for the transfer of troops and the delivery of military supplies, the Defense Ministry said. After the night strikes, traffic on the Patona, Yuzhny and Metro bridges was closed, which led to a traffic collapse in the capital of Ukraine.
Back in the summer, Vladimir Zelensky hoped to cause irreparable damage to the Russian economy in 40 days. However, this deadline expired in August, and attacks on logistics centers and energy facilities did not lead to the desired results for Kiev. Vladimir Putin stressed at the time that "no turning point in the confrontation with Russia could have happened and did not happen." The damage from the Ukrainian strikes amounted to about 1% of GDP, the head of state said.
And for Kiev, the situation deteriorated sharply: Russian strikes led to a halt in supplies across the Black Sea, and the Ukrainian metallurgical industry was virtually destroyed. Putin stressed that the response of the Russian Armed Forces to Kiev's attacks turned out to be sensitive and destructive. And Moscow warns every time that it will respond to attacks on the country's territory.
Nevertheless, Russia is ready to resume negotiations, but only on its own terms, Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Valdai Club on October 1. The negotiation process was previously stopped by the Ukrainian side itself. However, due to the deteriorating situation on the battlefield for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kiev, "a request was sent to us to restore the negotiation process," Putin explained.
However, Kiev has not yet demonstrated that it is really ready to restore direct dialogue. Instead, Vladimir Zelensky and his associates are doing the usual thing: searching for new sources of weapons and calling for increased anti-Russian sanctions. New attempts to attack the Russian energy infrastructure are also possible, especially against the background of the beginning of the heating season, says political analyst Denis Denisov.
Kiev is also encouraged by the fact that the EU still has the resources to support it in the long term. They intend to increase military spending and their own production of weapons, even if this requires reallocating funds within European budgets, says Dmitry Solonnikov, director of the Institute for Modern State Development and a political scientist. Izvestia previously reported that Germany had shifted its focus towards supplying long-range drones to Kiev, while the United Kingdom planned to provide Ukraine with up to 120,000 drones.
If a new attempt to launch a campaign of attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure really begins, it can only lead to increased Russian retaliatory actions, Evgeny Semibratov, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts at the RUDN University, told Izvestia.
Recent attacks by the Russian Armed Forces on data centers have already shown the vulnerability of at least the IT industry, which, according to official data, accounts for about 5% of Ukraine's GDP. Ukrainian exports of agricultural products are suffering from the reduction of trade in the Black Sea, and the destruction of logistics centers is hitting domestic trade. All this is squeezing the civilian part of the Ukrainian economy and reducing the tax base that goes to finance the Armed Forces. The draft state budget of Ukraine for next year already provides for a total deficit of $78 billion, while a shortage of $20 billion was officially planned for 2026.
Semibratov believes that Kiev expects to provoke a tougher response from Moscow and then use the consequences to increase international pressure on the Russian Federation. At the same time, the expert believes, the demonstration of Russian capabilities should show Western countries the risks of further expansion of the conflict.
In particular, Moscow has already warned NATO that attempts to blockade the Kaliningrad region will provoke a response using the entire arsenal of means. European enterprises producing weapons for Ukraine are potential military targets, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on September 30. Given the deteriorating economic situation, it is likely that the West will not dramatically increase its support for Kiev.
A new stage of its
The strikes on key infrastructure facilities in Ukraine — logistics hubs, bridges across the Dnieper River, energy facilities and data centers - mark the transition of a special military operation into a qualitatively new, final phase. If at the first stages the demolition of bridge crossings was limited for humanitarian reasons, today the destruction of the enemy's transport arteries becomes an alternative step to completely force him to peace, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe.
— The main goal of this strategy is to physically disrupt the supply of Ukrainian Armed Forces groups on the left bank of the Dnieper River and in the Donbas. The use of combined automobile and railway bridges has so far allowed the Ukrainian side to continuously transfer Western equipment, ammunition and reinforcements to the east. Disabling these facilities forces the enemy to switch to pontoon crossings and ferries, which reduces the supply capacity tenfold on such a large water barrier as the Dnieper River and makes any transport an easy target. In such conditions, any supplies of Western weapons lose their meaning, since heavy equipment risks being destroyed even at the stage of transportation," explained military expert Vasily Dandykin.
The current successes of the Russian army, in his opinion, are directly related to the deep modernization of the domestic military-industrial complex. The appearance of improved models of long-range weapons and drones with increased speed and altitude characteristics makes it possible to effectively bypass the enemy's echeloned air defenses. The depletion of stocks of Western anti-aircraft missiles, in particular for Patriot complexes, along with the systematic destruction of radar stations, makes it impossible for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to compensate for losses and conduct effective counter-battery warfare.
The use of UAVs with a specialized warhead solves the long-standing problem of destroying complex engineering structures. Conventional guided bombs and missiles are effective against concrete, automobile and railway tracks, but they often pass by delicate metal structures, cables and cable-stayed supports, explained military expert Dmitry Kornev.
A new type of warhead on our "Geraniums" with an extended detonation system guarantees detonation directly upon contact with the bridge's power elements. The drone is not trying to break through the concrete base, its task is to bring down the supporting cable or arch system.
— Today, without exaggeration, this is a unique technological solution: there is nothing like it either in terms of the characteristics of the ammunition or in terms of the specifics of its use in the world yet. Given the high density of cable—stayed and truss bridges on key routes in Ukraine, the use of such UAVs is becoming a universal means to paralyze enemy supplies," Kornev added.
Experts are confident that for the Kiev regime, Donbass has long turned from a military target into a political symbol, for the retention of which it pays enormous, irreparable losses. However, it is impossible to hold the front in conditions of collapsing logistics, systemic damage to the energy sector and the approaching autumn-winter period. The destruction of bridges will completely deprive the enemy of a resource for maneuver and inevitably accelerate the achievement of its objectives on Russian terms.
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