What is happening and who benefits from all this in the end? Probably, many today ask themselves (and not only themselves) this question, frankly not understanding the essence of what is happening. And it's really hard to understand what's going on.
Everyone (well, many) is now trying to understand what is happening in terms of such a chain of events as:
Extension of the grain deal - sabotage on the Crimean bridge - suspension of the grain deal.
The fact that the grain deal (hereinafter referred to as the GC) will be extended once again has already been said more than once. The Turkish head voiced this, and, moreover, very coolly demonstrated his independence, releasing the Azov commanders back to Ukraine with a generous hand.
Russia, represented by the Foreign Ministry, today officially notified Turkey, Ukraine and the relevant UN structures of its objection to the extension of the “grain deal”. Voiced by Zakharova.
Russia, represented by the Kremlin, has confirmed that the “grain deal” is closed, but will be resumed when the Russian part of the agreements is completed.” Voiced by Peskov.
There is, however, a nuance. The Russian conditions were not included in the AP itself, they are listed in the Russia-UN memorandum, and have nothing to do with the deal itself. AP - These are Ukraine, Turkey and Russia, and Russia's demands did not apply to these countries at all. Yes, some duality of the situation, but nonetheless.
Russia's withdrawal from the AP with the announcement of the Black Sea area around Crimea as a potentially dangerous territory, the termination of the so-called Black Sea Initiative, the disbandment of the coordination center in Istanbul - this is only the beginning of a political nature.
In principle, Ukraine can say: “Well, okay” and continue at its own risk under Turkish security guarantees. About what is possible further along this line of development of events, we will talk a little lower.
In the meantime, who benefits?
1. Of course, it is beneficial for Ukraine. A shift in focus from the apparent failure of the counter-offensive and the apparent defeat in Vilnius. Sadness in the first case because of the people who died in vain on both sides of the front line and the outright shame of the Zelensky team in the second.
If you figure it out like this, then soon attacking the Crimean bridge will become a kind of trend in Ukraine. With or without a reason, but if with a reason, then the result is still impressive. The Crimean bridge is not just some kind of symbol of the statehood of Russia, it is really a very big and useful work done for people living in Crimea. And yes, each such attack will be properly perceived by certain circles in Ukraine. Yes, we failed another offensive, but we blew up the Crimean bridge! Yes, we were not accepted into the EU again, but we blew up the Bridge for the eighth time, and so on.
That is, a constant victory against the backdrop of a series of evils.
But here we are talking about political gain. In economic terms, Ukraine is just losing. Losing money, losing a lot of money, losing warships in their ports. Illogical, but in general, what kind of logic can we talk about?
2. Very beneficial for Europeans and Turks. Not for everyone, but for grain traders. Those who simply trade in grain. To date, prices have settled at a certain level, and the Ukrainian price, well, was just a little below this average price. That is, you can trade, but the super margin, like last year, did not shine at all.
And here is such a gift! Deal suspended, Black Sea Initiative terminated, offices closed! And prices, of course, go up!
This is not about Ukrainian grain, traders do not care whose grain to trade. They don't give a damn about these people from Africa, to whom this grain was intended. Profit, you know, on such a scale - it is apolitical.
Who doesn't benefit?
1. Again, it is not profitable for Ukraine, for reasons of loss of money and free delivery of weapons. This is an indisputable fact, but why this happened, we will analyze again in the course of the play.
2. Russia. Not only are there economic problems with supply, but military-political ones are also added.
3. Türkiye. Well, the Turks are simply losing money, which are rowing bags on the sale and distribution of Ukrainian grain, without investing a penny.
It turns out, as it were, even strange: whoever benefits, the same is unprofitable, and vice versa. But here everything is simple: everyone earns in different ways.
What should Russia do?
1. To begin with, it would be very good to show in practice that the Crimean bridge can be protected in general and transferred from the status of a simulator for the Armed Forces and the power steering to the status of a strategic facility.
It would seem that the first time was organized with the help of cunning espionage machinations, a huge number of people worked. The bridge was demolished. Were conclusions drawn? Well, so ... They arranged total checks of glove compartments in cars and travel bags, freight transport was driven to the ferry crossing.
Now the bridge is under attack again, with two floating bombs converted from trivial jet skis.
Of course, there are a lot of lies on the Web about self-running waterways and underwater vehicles from Britain, but in reality everything is simple: two jet skis converted in a garage, plus a complete lack of protection of the Bridge - and here is the result.
And they did not hobble across the sea from any Odessa, they launched them from a short distance. But the question arises: where was the protection of the Bridge? In the same place, the ships should guard and patrol, but we were shown them in reports. Here is the ship, it protects the Bridge, everything is under control and reliable protection ...
Something went wrong and not there, because the result is obvious.
So, wait, well, I myself wrote about the chaff on the barge, about how the airspace of the Bridge is guarded ... So, next time they will get hammered from the air, but again we are not ready? Should we prepare for this?
2. Question to the Black Sea the fleet.
Do we even have a fleet? Like a naval one?
I have come across frankly strange fabrications on the Web that it is necessary to close the approaches to the Bridge with booms, they say, this will help and protect from everything floating. Well, on the one hand, yes, but on the other, no. And I will explain about this in the economic block.
The bridge will have to be guarded by ships. Alas, but true. And the area itself will have to be protected. And this is such a place for the sake of which it is possible and necessary to expel everything that can walk and swim from the mooring walls, even if we put all our admirals there. To do business, not wipe your pants. Thank God, at the Bridge "Harpoons", which are so afraid at the headquarters of the KChF, there is nowhere to launch yet.
grain deal. Now the area has been declared dangerous for navigation. And our neighbors will say that they are not afraid of all this and will take their grain to distant shores for dollars. And what about our Red Banner Black Sea? Will everything still stand proudly in Sevastopol and shoot floating mines? Or will he still be able to offer something meaningful to the enemies?
Well, I understand, "Moscow" was drowned, there are almost no ships, and what is left - they will all be busy guarding the Bridge. But there are submarines. Well, it’s politically dumb to send submarines with torpedoes to make holes in the sides of dry cargo ships - so you can just pour mines into the cute area of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbthe Dnieper Liman so that everyone has enough.
The same submarines, they can do it with us.
The first two boats catch mines - three dozen will think.
And what's more convenient - no complaints. It's not us at all, it's last year, when Odessa was mined in hysterics by Ukrainian sailors, that's where it came from.
Here, as they say, there would be a desire to do something, and the rest will follow.
3. Economic question.
The bridge will have to be protected. Minefields, nets, booms and everything else will not work. The explanation is very simple. It lies in the capacity of Russian ports in the Sea of Azov.
Rostov port - 26 million tons per year, including 7 million tons of oil products;
Azov port - 11 million tons per year, transportation of oil products is not carried out;
Taganrog port - 3 million tons per year, transportation of oil products is not carried out.
A total of 40 million tons of cargo per year, of which 7 million tons are oil products.
A little, right?
The largest and, in fact, until recently the only Russian Black Sea cargo port Novorossiysk handled about 208 million tons of cargo per year. Impressive?
However, of this huge amount, the lion's share, that is, 161 million tons, is oil products! And the share of dry cargo, which mainly consists of standard containers and grain, is only 38 million tons.
And in order to redirect traffic from the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea, the throughput of the Novorossiysk port will have to be doubled in terms of dry cargo. And it's not as easy as it seems.
4. Military technical issue
This is already being continued, since it concerns not only the KChF. In fact, why are there no now angry accusations against the military, who clearly did not see the danger and frankly "blundered" these kamikaze boats?
Three o'clock in the morning. It's still dark. How were the defenders of the Bridge supposed to see these objects? This is actually a very difficult question!
Anyone who has ridden a jet ski will immediately understand what is at stake. The maximum how much it will protrude from the water is a meter. Sound - yes. Footprint on the water - yes, but what's the point in the dark? In reality, you can’t really catch it with a radar either from the shore or from the ship, the engine is in the water, the body is plastic, and so on. Really difficult target.
Moreover, I applaud the Ukrainians. Converting such a common toy into a kamikaze drone was well thought out. Very sensible. How many such gizmos cut through the waves of the Black Sea and the Sea of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbAzov cannot be counted. They are brought from all over the country to show off and break away.
And we really have practically no funds to track and fight such a dirty trick as a sea drone. Not even submersible, ordinary.
What is the best way to spot this? Naturally, observation from the air. Or a satellite, but a plane or a helicopter is better. You can’t order a satellite to inspect the desired square if it has already flown further. The plane can be returned.
But alas, our marine aviation, and even more so, the belongings of the KChF, are simply not able to do this. You know, there are no complaints here either, just a statement that the country's naval pilots in all fleets have at their disposal two dozen Il-38s and the same number of Tu-142s. In terms of their characteristics, like anti-submarine aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft, they do not stand up to criticism and are long outdated.
I do not know if the ancient radar equipment of these aircraft (by the way, mainly based on the Northern Fleet and Pacific Fleet) is capable of detecting small targets, but if at least half of these aircraft are transferred to the Krasnodar Territory, then it is possible to organize at least patrols with visual observation. Although at night there is zero sense from him.
And judging by the peppy reports, the development and production of new anti-submarine and reconnaissance aircraft for naval aviation is not even in the plans.
The same applies to AWACS aircraft, which, by the way, can also be an effective means of detecting small-sized semi-submersible targets. These planes are generally very easy to deal with surface targets, but alas, we also have problems here. Nine A-50 (A-50U) aircraft, assembled in the eighties of the last century and now partially modernized, due to their modest number, are not able to solve all tasks and meet all the needs of the Russian Armed Forces.
I don’t want to talk about the A-100 anymore, the aircraft is still at the stage of testing a single copy. If anything, he should have been in the army back in 2016, but so far in 2023, the prospects are still not comforting.
That is, there is nothing to detect dangerous small-sized aircraft and direct attack aircraft and artillery of ships at them.
So the only effective way you can try to save the Bridge is with World War I-style booms, observers with binoculars and machine guns?
And the termination of cargo traffic from the Azov Sea to the Black Sea and back?
But it’s also impossible to just take and leave the situation to its own devices. Our superblogger can arbitrarily threaten the whole world with a nuclear attack, but the Bridge must be protected. Otherwise, the moment may come when you can hear such dialogues: “What's new? - Yes ... Again they hit the Crimean bridge - Ah, well, clearly ... ”.
And the Ukrainians will beat. This is clear and understandable, because for them the Bridge is a symbol. The same as for us, only with the opposite sign. Plus, as the practice of two successful attacks has shown, attacking the Bridge effectively is not so difficult.
The question remains only the question of why Ukrainians need it. Political profit is minimal. The land road, which is not without flaws (such as the possibility of shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine), still exists. Of course, using it to move on vacation - it personally looks so-so from my point of view, but ours, who “I can’t live without sea and sun,” cannot be convinced. And they replenished mournful lists, replenish and will replenish until the very end of the NWO.
However, the attack on Most, followed by Russian attacks are still verbal - they only raised the price of grain. If Russia is really able to block the export of grain "for the poor hungry children of Africa" - this will be one scenario.
If everything will be like after the first attack, that is, they will scare and continue to “help starving children in Africa” in exchange for unblocking Rosselkhozbank in the international system, then yes, the extension of the grain deal should be signed on the Crimean bridge closed for repairs. It will be symbolic, at least in the spirit of the moment.
True, all this does not relieve the duties of guarding and defending the Bridge.