Russia and Ukraine

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It's appropriate that the bridge attack would be used in memes. And that Ukraine would troll about it on the Internet. That was its purpose.

The bridge is open again for traffic both ways. The attack didn't accomplish any military or strategic goal -- no supply lines were cut. Like so many things in this war, it was done as a media event. A big explosion looks like a win, and we know that people forget things almost immediately, so it doesn't matter if there are long-term consequences or not.

One thing it has accomplished: the very civilized people who oppose Russian barbarism are applauding and joking about suicide bombs that kills civilians. That's who we are now.

In other news (that won't get reported in Anglophone media): tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris today demanding that France get out of NATO, which is increasingly seen by Europeans as a force for oppression.

Images of the bridge show a at least one part of it proper fucked.

The damage is worse than Bel (and Putin) would have us believe. The bridge is only partially open; various estimates place it as running at 40-60% of pre-explosion capacity. This makes supplying Crimea problematic (to put it mildly). Furthermore, lorries aren’t using the bridge - they’re being taken across the strait on ferries. You know what ferries are? Big, fat, slow targets.

Material aspects aside, this is HUGELY important to morale - it’s an ego-booster for the Ukrainians, who have always hated this structure, and damaging to already low Russian morale, since just three months ago, they declared the bridge un-attackable (and, for morale purposes, it doesn’t really matter if this was an actual attack or an accident).

Lastly, this bridge is Putin’s pride and joy - he was present at the opening of the bridge and drove a truck across it. Damage to it is likely to upset him enough that it’s going lead him into even more bad decisions.

Boru