Such is the road to the Crimea for the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Everyone has their own contract.
Building, as you know, does not break, and you can earn more. So we are building what others are trying to break, blow up, bomb. Recently, the Russian government extended until the end of 2023 a state contract with Nizhneangarsktransstroy LLC for the restoration of the Crimean bridge.
He and the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the VFU are attacked regularly, albeit with solid breaks. Last time on July 17 - surface drones. Then, as a result, one span was damaged and another received an axial displacement. Regular traffic in both directions on one side of the bridge is now planned to be launched only on September 15, on the second - by November 1.
Earlier, in October 2022, as a result of an explosion on the same highway, until the spring of 2023, road and rail traffic was periodically stopped, and therefore it was necessary to urgently resume the work of the previously stopped Kerch ferry crossing. The SBU claimed to be involved in both attacks, apparently with the help of British intelligence.
Specifically, we can talk about structures affiliated with Colonel Mi5 and senior NATO adviser Chris Donnelly, as well as with Hugh Ward, the developer of plans to destroy the Russian bridge. Characteristically, another rocket attack on the Chongar bridge on July 29 also led to temporary changes in logistics.
In addition, on July 31, the Crimean Operational Headquarters announced a temporary ban on the movement of civilians through Genichesk along the Arabat Spit (in both directions), the timing of which has not yet been officially announced.
Not a short memory
Few people know that they tried to undermine the railway communication with the Crimea back in 1953. And the United States carried out the same "practice" in North Vietnam in the 60s - mid-70s: the American Air Force and saboteurs tried to destroy infrastructure and life support facilities in the DRV, struck / organized sabotage against transportation and non-military goods.
Communications between the DRV and the PRC on Vietnamese territory were also often undermined and, it happened - allegedly due to a "mistake" - on Chinese territory (near the border with the DRV). Since these communications partially delivered military-technical cargo to the DRV from the USSR, other Warsaw Pact countries, the PRC, the DPRK, Albania, and Mongolia. So the Kiev regime hardly ignores this experience of Washington.
Most likely, not without American recommendations, attempts are being made to paralyze communication between Crimea and adjacent Russian regions. It is here that it would not be out of place to recall that in the spring of 1953, shortly after the death of Stalin, a group of surviving Bandera planned to undermine the railway track on the Perekop Isthmus.
The calculation was definitely made on the weakening of the competent Soviet authorities in connection with the March tragic event. The sabotage was prevented thanks to the prompt actions of the Soviet counterintelligence and the identification in the Ukrainian SSR of the curators of this action - from the intelligence agencies of the United States and Germany.
Looking at geographical maps
One glance at the map is enough to understand the vulnerability - at least the lack of existing land routes linking the Crimean peninsula, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions with the rest of Russia. Moreover, these routes are in relative proximity to the line of contact between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
Obviously, the enemy will continue to try to compensate for the failures of his "counterattack" with artillery strikes in order to complicate the movement along the Rostov-on-Don - Mariupol - Berdyansk - Melitopol - Crimea route.
Even before 1991, there were reasonable predictions that as traffic between Crimea and neighboring Russian regions increased, ferry backups of the existing Crimean crossing along the Feodosia / Yalta - Novorossiysk / Tuapse lines would be required; Yeisk / Taganrog - Shchelkino / Kerch; Achuevo / Primorsko-Akhtarsk (southern Krasnodar Sea of \uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbAzov) - Kerch / Shchelkino.
However, the Kiev leadership did not show any interest in the development of socio-economic ties between the Crimea and the RSFSR. At the same time, in the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, during the reign of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the influence of immigrants from Ukraine and their lobbyists only grew.
The long-standing idea of a ferry connection between the Krasnodar ports of Temryuk and Yeysk and Kerch, rejected by the Kyiv authorities under Leonid Kuchma in the early 2000s, got a chance to be realized after the reunification of Crimea with the Russian Federation. Despite the pilot (experimental) operation of the route in 2016-2017, it did not work in full mode, although it was clear that its demand would only increase.
It was not planned to launch a ferry along the Taganrog-Kerch/Shchelkino line, as was discussed on the sidelines of the presentation of the investment potential of the Rostov Region at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation in April 2016. Of the projects mentioned, only the ferry route between Novorossiysk and Feodosia has been fully implemented, but since 2020 its load has decreased.
Crossing, crossing, left bank or right bank?
The problematic situation was until the beginning of 2023, we recall, with the Kerch crossing, since almost all transportation was urgently transferred to the Crimean bridge. True, after the terrorist attack on October 8, 2022, the regular operation of this crossing was resumed, but there are clearly not enough backup and duplicating options here.
A similar situation persists with the project of the early 1950s - to build the shortest trans-Crimean railway along the line Kerch - Vladislavovka - Belogorsk - Simferopol with a length of 220 km. The project was also repeatedly rejected by the leadership of the Ukrainian SSR. The operating trans-Crimean railway Kerch - Vladislavovka - Simferopol passes through the northern Crimean Dzhankoy, which lengthens the route to the administrative center of the region and to Sevastopol, Evpatoria by more than 200 km.
In November 2017, the Crimean government proposed to clarify and implement this project, which was originally included in the "Draft Concept for the Integrated Development of the Region's Railways until 2030 inclusive". However, in July 2020, following the results of a meeting on the implementation of the Federal Target Program for the Development of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol in the region, Sergey Aksyonov announced "the lack of economic feasibility of the project."
But, in addition to commercial calculations, military-political factors should not be discounted. For example, after a recent drone attack on an ammunition depot in the Dzhankoy district, traffic had to be blocked on the Dzhankoy-Simferopol railway section, and this is far from the only incident of this kind.
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