Another attack was carried out against the bridge that connects Crimea to the European continent in the Kerch Strait. Around three in the morning of the last seventeenth, local time, two explosions were recorded on the bridge, destroying a vehicle and damaging a section of the road bridge built and operated by Russia. The attack was classified as a terrorist act by the Russian government, which decided to retaliate in one of the most delicate and global areas of this war, food security.
It is the second time in the current conflict that the bridge has been the target of a Ukrainian attack, with the first being in October 2022. For Ukrainians, the bridge is a legitimate target, for two reasons. First, because it is an illegal work, built by an occupying power in internationally Ukrainian territory, Crimea. The bridge was inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself in May 2018, after almost two years of construction, being the longest bridge in Europe, connecting Crimea to Russia.
Second, the bridge is essential to the Russian war effort, transporting troops, war materiel and fuel to Crimea. The peninsula contains some of the main Russian military bases in the region and it was from there that the offensive towards the south of Ukraine began, especially against the Kherson oblast. While the first attack on the bridge used a truck bomb, now the Ukrainians have again used naval drones, a type of weaponry that saw its baptism by fire in the current conflict.
embarrassing target
The destroyed vehicle was a civilian car, killing a Russian couple and injuring their daughter. Probably one of the bridge piers was damaged, leaving a gap in the road bridge, although the railway segment was left intact. Although the bridge is in need of repairs, it reopened to reduced traffic shortly afterwards. The fact that the damage was not so extensive and the timing of the attack even aroused suspicions that it could be a Russian false flag operation, a provocative hoax.
Several media outlets, however, cited Ukrainian intelligence sources that the attack was actually carried out by the country. Finally, a Ukrainian minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, confirmed the authorship of the attack and the use of naval drones, something also commented by an intelligence spokesman, Artem Dekhtyarenko, quoted in the international press. Excluding the possibility of a false flag operation, it is important to stress that the episode is embarrassing for Russia.
A symbol of the “ultimate” Russian presence in Crimea, the Kerch Strait Bridge was a large and costly infrastructure project in addition to its aforementioned role in the Russian war effort. And it gets hit twice in less than a year, quite easily. It is not a question of diminishing the possible Ukrainian merits, but of imagining that such an important place would be better garrisoned. If the Ukrainians are testing the waters for a more decisive attack on the bridge, they are encouraged.
Reprisals
Russian retaliation for the attack came in two forms. First, with missile and drone strikes against the port of Odessa in western Ukraine. The historic city is today the main port under Ukrainian control. According to the Ukrainian government, the port’s infrastructure was affected. Odessa is now the main outlet for Ukraine’s grain exports. A presidential adviser to Zelensky, Andriy Yermak, said the attack showed that Russia “wants to endanger the lives of 400 million people in various countries who depend on Ukrainian food exports”.
The number quoted by the Ukrainian government is the result of a UN report, and not the result of arbitrariness. This is the second aspect of the Russian retaliation, with the announcement that the country is withdrawing from the agreement on grain exports through the Black Sea, established in July 2022, mediated by the UN and Turkey. The agreement needed to be renewed periodically and the Russian government announced that it will leave definitively and that the talks will be closed, at least until the security of the Crimean bridge is “guaranteed”.
Before the war, more than seventy million tons of wheat transited through the Black Sea, more than 10% of the world’s entire cereal production, not to mention other cereals and products. Both Ukraine and Russia are huge agricultural producers, with Ukraine historically being called the “breadbasket of Europe”. The agreement facilitated the export of about five million tons of cereals per month, meeting part of the world’s demand even in the midst of the conflict.
world problems
The Russian justification for withdrawing from the agreement was not officially the attack on the bridge, of course, that would be assuming weakness. Indeed, the Russian government vehemently denied the connection between the attack and the decision. According to the Kremlin’s announcement, the withdrawal was due to the alleged continuing difficulties for Russian exports of agricultural products and fertilizers. The decision, for whatever reason, will again bring the specter of galloping inflation and food shortages to some regions of the globe.
The regions most affected at first are the Middle East and East Africa, regions that are large importers of wheat and whose main suppliers are Ukraine and Russia. Even before the war, for example, Egypt imported about 90% of its wheat from the two countries via the Black Sea. Suspension of the agreement will mean greater risk for operations, consequently higher costs and lower quantities, substantially increasing prices.
Even the possibility of overland export via Europe is problematic. Ukrainian infrastructure is geared towards the port of Odessa. Furthermore, European farmers and producers have already protested in recent months against the entry of Ukrainian products. Because they don’t follow European Union standards, they arrive much cheaper and affect the competitiveness of local producers, whose solidarity with the Ukrainians can go far, but not that far.
Ukraine will work on the image that Russia’s withdrawal from the agreement means that the country does not care about the rest of the world, unlike the Ukrainians. They may try to make their own export corridor viable. Even if they succeed, the short term will be one of uncertainty and instability. As always in history, those who will pay for this instability will be the poorest and already affected by the conflict, even if indirectly.
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