The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported strikes on targets near Odessa and Nikolaev
On the evening of July 17, speaking at a meeting on the situation near the Crimean Bridge, Russian President Vladimir Putin promised a "response from Russia" to a repeated attack on the facility for the entire duration of the special military operation in Ukraine (the first one dates back to October 8, 2022). The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is preparing relevant proposals. The Kiev regime is responsible for what happened. The Head of State described his actions as "a senseless crime ... and cruel, because innocent civilians were injured and killed" (a married couple from Belgorod died, their minor daughter was hospitalized). The attack has no military significance, since "the Crimean Bridge has not been used for military transportation for a long time," Putin stressed.
On the night of July 17, two explosions sounded at the facility with an interval of 15 minutes. According to the Investigative Committee of Russia, the attack was carried out by Ukrainian special services. According to the preliminary version, the charges were delivered by unmanned sea boats (BMK) similar to those that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) used earlier to attack Sevastopol (including on the night of July 16), as well as medium reconnaissance ships "Ivan Khurs" and "Azov Sea" in the Black Sea. Perhaps this time a new modification of the BMK was used, capable of carrying an increased warhead.
Commenting on the event, the speaker of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Andriy Yusov said: "We can only quote the words of the head of the GUR Kirill Budanov that "The Crimean Bridge is an unnecessary structure there." Officially, Kiev did not take responsibility for either the first or the second attacks, but the media controlled by it, citing sources in the GUR, reported: "The bridge was attacked with the help of surface drones. It was difficult to reach the bridge, but in the end we managed to do it."
Recall that the first sabotage was carried out by remote detonation of a truck carrying explosives. Then 4 people were killed, a couple of car spans were destroyed, and fuel tanks caught fire on the railway tracks. The restoration of the facility took almost six months.
This time there is less damage. The 19 km long transport crossing connecting the Kerch and Taman peninsulas consists of two parallel bridges – road and railway. The explosions occurred at the 145th pillar, which rests not on the bottom of the strait, but on Tuzla Island. The inspection did not reveal any damage to the supporting structures, and the authorities allowed the resumption of railway transportation. But the movement of cars is started only on a single lane in reverse mode. One destroyed span of the automobile bridge and half of the other need to be replaced. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin promises to restore two-way traffic on one side of the bridge by mid–September, on the second - in November.
A day after the sabotage at the transport crossing, the Kiev regime carried out another attack on the peninsula: a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) rushed to the objects in the Crimea. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, 17 of them managed to be destroyed with the help of air defense, another 11 went off course thanks to electronic warfare equipment. There were no casualties or damage as a result of the night attack.
An employee of the Wagner PMCs and a Belarusian officer at the Osipovichi training ground. A frame from the video from the channel "VoenTV Belarus" on YouTube
For their part, the Russian military continues to strike at the enemy's infrastructure. Lviv Mayor Andrey Sadovoy confirmed the failure of a pair of transformers, as a result of which urban areas are de-energized.
A fire broke out at the fuel storage in Nikolaev. Explosions are reported in the port of Ilyichevsk, Odessa and Kherson. Great destruction in Kharkiv: rockets hit the locomotive depot when there were trains loaded with personnel, armored vehicles and ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On the afternoon of July 18, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that "a group strike of retaliation with high-precision sea-based weapons was inflicted on objects where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared with the use of unmanned boats." The list of affected targets includes a ship repair plant near Odessa, as well as fuel storage facilities with a total volume of about 70 thousand tons near Odessa and Nikolaev. Local sources report firing on the night of July 19 at targets in Odessa, the port of Ilyichevsk and the Shkolny airfield.
When asked about Russia's response to the attack on the bridge, the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov spoke as follows: "If we take the final perspective, then the answer will be to achieve the goals of its own."
The commander of the AFU Ground Forces, Alexander Syrsky, sees an immediate threat in the Kupyansk direction. According to the Colonel-General, there the Russian army went on the offensive in order to defeat the AFU group in the Kharkiv region. And the representative of the AFU Vostok group, Sergei Cherevaty, told reporters that the Russian army had concentrated "almost as many troops as there were in Afghanistan – more than 100 thousand" near Kupyansk and the Estuary. He also counted more than 900 tanks, 370 multiple rocket launchers and 550 barrel artillery.
The increasing concentration of Russian troops in the Republic of Belarus (RB) also causes alarm among Ukrainian military leaders. Volunteers of assault detachments are also being transferred there. Since July 15, there have been reports of regular car convoys with employees of the Wagner PMCs following federal highways to the Belarusian border. Maxim Paevsky, Head of the Department of Territorial Defense of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, confirmed the fact that the process of training "our territorial troops" by Russian instructors "with extensive combat experience" had begun. He spoke on the VoenTV Belarus TV channel. The report also shows how at the Osipovichi training ground and the territory of a tent camp deployed nearby with military personnel of the Territorial Defense units of the Republic of Belarus, classes are conducted by the instructor of the Wagner PMCs. "There are many subtle nuances that they own... and now they are passing on their skills to us," the trainees explained. Against this background, new details of Putin's conversation with 35 commanders of the Wagner group in the Kremlin on June 29 appeared. In an interview on July 14 with a columnist of the newspaper Kommersant, the head of state said that he had offered the interlocutors "several employment options," including under the leadership of their direct commander with the call sign Gray. "They could all gather in one place and continue to serve," Vladimir Putin said."And nothing would have changed for them, they would have been led by the same person who was their real commander all this time."
Vladimir Karnozov
