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Expert Analysis: What Really Caused The Crimea Bridge to Come Down

The Only Physical Link Between Crimea and Russia

In 2014 Vladimir Putin’s government illegally annexed Crimea as part of Russia. By 2018 he had built the longest bridge in Europe to physically connect the two land masses. This was a solid symbol of Russian domination. A $3.7 billion USD symbol. To make matters even clearer, Putin personally drove one of the first trucks over the structure the day it was opened. It’s like a dog peeing on something to claim ownership.

The bridge, of course, is of enormous practical importance. It plays a critical role in getting supplies from Russia, through Crimea, to Russian troops fighting in the Kherson region of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to buckle up to drive one of the first trucks across the Crimean Bridge in 2018. Screenshot from YouTube and Wall Street Journal

On October 8th, at about 0600 local time, an enormous explosion severely damaged the Crimea (or, as it is sometimes called, Kerch) Bridge. Because of its strategic importance, the bridge is one of the most secure structures in the world. Security cameras cover almost every inch.

Please watch the footage below made available through Twitter and Russian Media Monitor. Carefully watch the truck in the right-hand lane toward the center of your screen. Many believe it is the main cause of the damage. At the 0:17 mark, it seems to vaporize, causing a huge fireball severely damaging rail cars on the adjacent railway. Coincidentally, all seven of them were full of fuel.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that an initial bomb damage assessment shows one lane of the road bridge to be collapsed and damage to the nearby railway track. The Russian Investigative Committee quickly surveyed the damage, and they concluded that a truck had exploded on the bridge and ignited the fuel-laden railway cars. Almost immediately, though, Russia sent divers to examine the structural integrity of the bridge supports underwater.

For the record, I do not believe the truck was what brought the bridge down. No way, and I’ll explain why.

Here we see a satellite photo of the final damage. You’ll note that the roadway between two spans has been dropped into the sea. Screenshot from YouTube and CNN

However, if the truck was the primary explosive device, we would see a hole in the middle of the road. None was evident. The structure collapsed into pieces and fell.

The bridge has dropped in multiple pieces, indicating a probable blast from below. Screenshot from YouTube and WSJ

The detonation of high explosives above the surface of the bridge, as has been claimed by the Russians, would have sent the majority of the blast force up and away from the truck. However, as noted above, that would cause a massive hole in the roadway and extensive scorching of the highway’s surface. What little we see of damage to the road’s surface is likely from the fire from the railway cars that were full of fuel. In addition, modern bridges are made to withstand accidents in the unlikely event that a truck carrying explosive cargo may ignite.

No, ladies and gentlemen, this blast came from below.

A waterborne object is picked up on a security camera immediately before the explosion. Screenshot from YouTube and WSJ.

By All Indications, an SOF Operation

Obviously, the Russians did not take out their own multi-billion dollar bridge and main supply line to a war they are currently fighting. The Ukrainians did this. But, they do not have weapons with the range to even come close to hitting the Crimea bridge from Ukraine. The HIMARS weapons systems we have provided to them could only cover a fraction of the hundreds of miles from Ukraine to the damaged bridge.

Sky News explains how the Crimea, or Kerch Bridge is a pivotal link to getting people and supplies from Russia to Crimea and through Ukraine to the Kherson region. This image also gives us an excellent idea of how far the bridge is from Ukraine. Screenshot from YouTube and Sky News

In my opinion, and you’ve probably read it here first, this was the result of a highly successful special operations forces mission. Mark my words: one day, a movie will be made about this. This operation took place deep behind enemy lines in Russian territory. Operators infiltrated the area with the highest degree of secrecy, bringing hundreds of pounds of high explosives. Whoever did was was good, very good. To say that the Russians are watching this bridge carefully would be an understatement.

I believe the explosion(s) came from under the bridge, with shaped charges likely being placed on the supporting structures. Who would have placed those explosives? Again, I can only speculate, but my money is on Ukrainian troops from the 73rd Naval Special Purpose Center. These are special forces units of the Ukrainian Naval Infantry, their version of our US Navy SEALs or British SBS. The exact details of their equipment are classified, but it is known to be highly sophisticated and comparable to what we have in the west. And keep in mind that US Special Operations Command Europe kept training the Ukrainians until the beginning of the war.

The Ukrainian 73rd has swimmer delivery vehicles (SDVs) and DPDs (diver propulsion devices) to get their combat divers where they need to be. The SDV can best be described as a mini-sub, about 22 feet long, with an electric motor and single screw propeller. High-frequency sonar and a doppler inertial navigation system get the Team and their gear where they need to be silently. They are often deployed from and may be retrieved by submarines. That’s one potential scenario for successful infiltration and exfiltration.

Unit patch from the Ukrainian 73rd Naval Special Operations Center

 

Regardless of exactly how they did it, the SOF made logistical issues for Russia in their war with Ukraine (especially in the Kherson region) much more difficult. Refer to the map above from Sky News. It shows how supplies, equipment, and troops were getting from the motherland to the Kherson region of Ukraine through annexed Crimea utilizing the 12-mile-long Crimea (Kerch) bridge. Now that they can’t do that, materiel will have to be moved by sea to the Ukrainian port cities of Berdyansk and Mariupol and trucked hundreds of miles through enemy territory to its destination.

The Russians, of course, will move to repair the bridge as quickly as possible. Still, I wager that the damage will buy the Ukrainians at least two or three weeks of valuable time where the already undersupplied Russian forces will receive very little or no support.

This is an enormous blow to the Russians, on par with the Ukrainian sinking of the Moskva. A sound tactical victory and one hell of a morale booster. “Look at what we can do,” they are telling the Kremlin, giving the middle finger directly to Putin. To his credit, Mr. Putin isn’t stupid, never said he was. Shortly after the attacks, he gave a speech stating how he views this as a terrorist attack against his country and, “The authors, perpetrators and those who ordered it are the special services of Ukraine.” As a former KGB man, he knows this and is currently doing his best to take revenge against the citizens of Ukraine because he has been made to look so bad.

My hope is that the armed forces of Ukraine will take full advantage of this situation to push Russian forces from the Kherson region. The New York Times just yesterday reported on increasingly lowered enemy morale and a general retreat from the area.

Author’s Note: Many thanks to the Wall Street Journal and their chief correspondent on the ground in Ukraine, Yaroslav Trofimov, for making the insightful YouTube video presented above. They seem to be of the same mind that we are, that this was not solely the work of a truck bomb and definitely not caused by a missile strike.

SDV: Warriors Under the Surface, Part 1

Twenty years, that’s how long it took for me to realize I’d done something unique, something different. I was young when I started my SEAL career at SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two (SDVT-2). I thought all the Team guys at real SEAL Teams must be right. They must have known something I didn’t.

They must have known there was no point to the SDVs.

The problem was I didn’t feel that way. I thought SDVs were cool. Thinking they were cool and knowing they were cool were two different things though. I never said it out loud. I kept my thoughts to myself. I figured I’d get hazed or something worse. Over the years I started to believe the real Team guys.

I checked into SDVT-2 during the summer of 1985. Before that I went through BUD/S training, graduating in early ’85. I went to SDV School in San Diego followed by jump school. Most Team guys went to Fort Benning in Georgia for jump school, I was spared the humiliation. Jump school at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, in New Jersey was tame, even lame. A week or so of falling out of airplanes and I was off to Virginia Beach, to Little Creek, home of the East Coast SEAL Teams.

The Team building was hard to find. I figured it would stand out a little. I thought it would be by the beach, like the West Coast Teams. It wasn’t. The sign out front of the building was wrong, I think. It said UDT-22 (Underwater Demolition Team – 22). Or maybe that was my first Team sweatshirt. Either way, it took me a while to find out where to check in. I wandered onto SEAL Team Four’s quarterdeck first. They showed me where to go, but not before giving me a hard time.

I wasn’t the only lost new guy. Several of my BUD/S classmates were assigned to SDVT-2 with me. We straggled in a few minutes apart with the same faraway look in our eyes. Fortunately, we were all early, real early. Unfortunately, we were in uniform and were forced to hang around the quarterdeck while the old guys came in. BUD/S thrashings paled in comparison to what we would be subjected to at the Team.

We noticed a plaque hanging on the wall near the quarterdeck. It was plain and nondescript, not like the other plaques. It was decorated with the SDVT-2 symbol, some names, and a motto saying, “Are you just a SEAL or are you an SDV SEAL?” Not many guys volunteered to go to SDVs, but I did. I read the saying with a sense of subdued pride. Other guys laughed out loud at the plaque; they weren’t volunteers.

We were relieved to leave the quarterdeck and start our check-in at the base Personnel Support Detachment (PSD). There would be time enough for getting to know the other SDVers, even if they were less than hospitable.

Like so many places in the military, SDVT-2 assumed that SDV School screwed us all up. We would all have to go through Advanced Operator Training (AOT) before we could be assigned to a platoon.

AOT was SDV School all over again, except it said advanced on our certificates. During SDV School, I (as well as everyone else) discovered that I was a terrible pilot, and AOT confirmed it. I was a good navigator. In traditional SDV roles, pilots were enlisted guys and navigators were officers. Good thing for me there was no shortage of officers that sucked at being navigators.

Shortly after AOT, most of the team packed up and headed south to Puerto Rico (PR), like it did most years. Warm, crystal clear water allowed us to continue our mind-numbing eight and ten hour dives. It was in PR, during my first live SDV dive, that I was told how fortunate I was to be an SDVer. The Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) was just coming online on the East Coast. The DDS made it possible for SDVs to be launched from submarines. We often joked the DDS was a way for ballistic subs and SDVs to survive in a post Cold War era.

As a navigator or a pilot I would have to be qualified to do SDV launch and recovery from a sub. The pilot I dove with was a seasoned vet, someone who could get us back to the sub if I messed up. The launch was usually easy. The DDS would with water, the DDS operators would move the SDV out onto the deck, and away we would go. The recovery, on the other hand, was more difficult. The navigator would have to find the sub and guide the pilot to within arm’s length of a tether line.

For practice, we did race tracks. A race track was a clockwise or counter clockwise lap around the sail of the sub as it moved along at slow speed. Newby navigators often lost the sub and played catch up for hours.

After getting out in front of the sub, my pilot told me to open my canopy, the sliding door on my side of the SDV. The inside of the SDV was dark. Opening the canopy rendered me temporarily blind as the clear Caribbean waters reflected the brilliant midday sun. My eyes adjusted. As they did, I spotted a massive black submarine coming towards us. “There are very few people who have the privilege of diving in open water with one of the United States most powerful vessels. Any way you put it, that is an awesome site,” my pilot said. I took a quick glance at the sub. Admittedly I was more focused on not screwing up and missing the sub for recovery.

I didn’t enjoy the moment as my pilot had hoped.

The image of that sub coming towards me is as vivid in my memory today as it was then. The giant ballistic sub passed in front of me silent as a mouse. I felt a slight shutter in the SDV as the sail passed, but that was it. I would dive on and off subs a hundred times over my time at SDVT-2. It became commonplace.

I didn’t forget what it was like to see a sub in the water. I did forget what my pilot said to me that first dive.

That’s what took me twenty years to remember.

It took me that long to realize how profound it was. I remembered what else he said: “Two thirds of the earth’s surface is covered in water. Millions of people live along hundreds of thousands miles of coastline. Some say there’s no point to SDVs; I say it’s just a matter of time. SDVers are carrying on the Frogman tradition, don’t forget that.”

There is a point to SDVs.