Frontline report: Ukraine strikes Crimean bridges and military targets, disrupting Russian logistics

Day 522. 30 July 2023 Today there is a lot of news from the south. First of all, Ukrainian forces continued demolishing Russian military logistics and conducted a missile strike on the Crimean bridges. This time the target of the strike became the bridges in the northern part of Crimea. The Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Ukrainian forces struck the Chonhar bridge. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Ukrainians launched 12 Storm Shadow missiles and Russians managed to intercept every single one of them. Russian analysts expressed extreme skepticism about such claims and asked how the Russian air defense was unable to shoot down just a couple of missiles when Ukrainians were blowing up one ammunition depot after another over the last two weeks. Interestingly, Russian sources still have not published any footage confirming that the bridge is intact. In turn, Russian sources reported that the traffic was stopped, and the Russian military restricted access to the Chonhar bridge.

It seems like after the previous strike on the Chonhar Bridge when the locals and journalists immediately flooded the area and filmed everything from all possible angles, the Russian military took measures to react to such developments faster and judging by the lack of footage, they implemented these measures successfully. It allowed the Defense Ministry to claim that all rockets were shot down and the bridge remained intact, despite the mysterious traffic jams. By the way, the timing of the missile strike is not accidental. If you still remember, after the strike on the road bridge in Kerch, all traffic went through the Zaporizhzhia Oblast, creating traffic jams and sending a shock through the Russian logistics.

Russian forces on the zero line very soon felt this shock in the form of shortages of ammunition, especially artillery shells, which to a great extent, facilitated the Ukrainian breakthroughs that we discussed over the last week. As the traffic normalized and Russians restored partial movement on the Kerch bridge, Ukrainians struck the Crimean logistics from the other side.

Such developments once again caused massive disruptions of the supply lines, as many cars and trucks now have to take a detour and hamper the movement of military supplies to the front. On top of that, a day prior, Ukrainians conducted another Storm Shadow strike on the 5th Russian base in Crimea. This time the target became Kremniivka, where Russians have the facilities for repairing damaged equipment. Russian sources reported that Ukrainians used at least three cruise missiles, all of which reached their destination. This is already the second destroyed repair base in Crimea, which means that the ability of Russians to substitute damaged tanks and armored fighting vehicles on the front will suffer a lot. Moreover, two days ago, explosions were reported in Sevastopol. Some sources speculated that this was yet another attempt to destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Later, the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate reported that saboteurs set explosives against a Russian ammunition depot in Kozacha Bay near Sevastopol (southern Crimea). And it looks like it’s true because locals reported primary and secondary detonations. Today Ukrainians also conducted a drone strike. Russian sources reported that the scale of the strike was quite small because Ukrainians launched just three drones. Russian analysts warned that this marks the beginning of the preparation for the next large-scale drone strike. The analysts pointed out that Ukrainians launched these three drones from different airfields, even though all of them targeted the same area, which is quite strange and can only mean that Ukrainians are testing Russian air defense to identify the weak spots. In the meantime, the Russian Fleet is trying to assert its presence in the Black Sea to prevent commercial ships from entering Ukrainian harbors and effectively block the export of whatever grain was left after the Russian strikes. Interestingly, the Russian ships immediately started suffering from the attacks of marine kamikaze drones. Russian sources reported that one of their warships was attacked by two drones.

Even though the ship reportedly remained intact, such strikes increase the risk of losing more ships, actively discouraging Russians from more aggressive movement and confirming that Ukrainian forces are still exerting some control over the Black Sea and limiting Russian mobility.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.