Still cant figure how they pulled that off.
You can clearly see the truck is moving on the right lane , which makes me think that the driver was unaware of the bomb. If it was intentional , he would drive on the left lane ( to damage the other runway ) or in the middle of the road , to do the most damage.
But what ruins my theory , is the timing of the explosion at the exact time the train passed.
Just don't don't see how they could calculate the exact time a truck driver would be on the bridge and pass the train. That would be so much easier to pull off if the driver was actually the one pushing the button .
Still a mystery.
Any suggestions ?
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I have been thinking about that myself.
Look at it from several different factors. This is what we do in the Miliary for Damage Assessment, and most likely what the Russian is doing now.
1.) How much explosive to have taken out one entire road bridge, damage another, and damage to the Train and Train Track next to it?
2.) Was it one explosion or two?
3.) How does the bomb get in position? And how that affect the bombing.
4.) How much Damage assessment was done, co-related to the location of bombing.
Now, if we can answer all these question, then we probably have a good idea how they pull this off. So let's start
1.) Explosion taken out one entire section of the bridge is not small, and the damage it had done is quite big, I would say it is at least 1000 pound explosion involved, may be more, so a few things are going t be out of question, since we didn't see any pillar was damaged or destroyed, we can rule out C4 on load bearing beam, we can also rule out any thing from below because there were no blast damage from the joint that was exposed. And the surface of the bridge have a radiated and larger burnt mark than the side of the bridge, as the two photos below
I can say for certain (90%+ Certainty), this is a roadside det of a 1000 pound or more device.
2.) If we look at the first picture of the rail bridge, you can see the side and the pillar underneat the train are both blackened, and suffered fire damage. Which suggest the fireball of the road bridge burn up and toward the rail bridge. Now I can't say for sure someone didn't just put C4 on the burned pillar and it just didn't go down, don't have enough data for that, but I would found it strange if they do send frogman to mine the rail bridge, why not do the same with the road bridge? So I found that unlikely, and based on that, I would conclude with potential certainty (50-60%) that this is a single bomb.
3.) The bridge have X-ray to scan trucks and car on both ends, whether or not they are probably done, or has been done at all are unknown, so I cannot comment on that. However, if this is a truck bomb, and this is more or less maximum damage, then I don't think it is likely this is a truck bomb without the driver knowing because you have to be very lucky to have all the things line up without direct control of the driver. The bomb has to be detonated on the middle stretch of the bridge and has to be next to the railway with a fuel train on top. 10 seconds before or after would have change the damage matrix a lot because you will be detonating the bomb on top of a pillar, most likely weaken the road bridge but not taking it down, and 10 second would mean you will be 800 meters forward or backward from the train, which will not consume the train, I have ZERO doubt this is a coordinated strike, too much co-incident to have it a blind sabotage, a "Hope and Pray" style strike, if this is a truck bomb, the driver HAVE TO BE IN THE KNOW.
So what other delivery method? If not truck or car bomb?
It can be a hit and run scoop from SF. A few frogman team using submersible and get all the way out to Kerch Bridge without being detected. Lay explosive on the bridge but as I explained, this is more likely a surface det, which mean the Frogman would have to work on the road surface with full view of Russian and motor traffic, this is unlikely.
The bomb on the train? Most likely not, an explosive this big would have disintegrate the train. Or at least blow it off the bridge, if the train have the bomb, the train will not be on the track afterward. So no, I don't believe so.
Missile? The only missile remotely able to reach the bridge is Ballistic Missile, but it's hard to hit the specific point with old Russian technology, either ATACMS or US supplies ballistic missile could do the trick, but there are no record of any transfer, however, I have suspected US or Western Country has been working on upgrade on Ukrainian Missile stock, maybe integrate it into Western Guidance system, that would give them range and accuracy to pin point attack. Especially so after Ukrainian sink Moskva and the ammo dump and airfield attack in Crimea.
4.) As explained before, this is probably the maximum damaged across the entire bridge, there are no part of the bridge were not damaged, and some part of the bridge was seriously damaged.
This is highly likely a coordinated strike, intel between the train and how and when such attack occur will not be notified by the Russian. This is not some mad ram suicide attack, the traffic was moving as usual before the attack, which mean this is out of nowhere by the Ukrainian, meaning they have way to get around the Russian defences on the bridge.
With all the info, I can conclude This is Highly Likely a suicide VBIED type attack, or a Missile Strike, less likely it is SF Direct Action op (SF would still be involved, just not on the ground) highly unlikely this is an unorganised attack. They have been planning this for a while.
