With Kerch Bridge destroyed, Ukrainians have a window of opportunity

Hey everybody, Peter Zion here coming to you from Richmond, Virginia. Today we’re gonna talk about Russian logistics just to touch. It has now been four and a half days since someone undoubtably the Ukrainians did a bomb attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which is the bridge that connects the mainland of Russia, to the southeastern point of the Crimean peninsula. It is Russia’s only reliable rail connection to the southern front. There are rail connections in the eastern part of Ukraine that do end into the West. But they all are reliant on a single transfer station up in near the river and separate pizza. And so they’re well within short range of missile fire and rocket fire from the Ukrainian so the Russians have not reused that route because the trains kept getting blown up. Kirche, however, is completely out of the range of almost all weapons that are in play in the theater is certainly everything that Ukrainians have. And it’s not until equipment on the trains gets all the way past Crimea and is actually approaching KEARSON. City before it comes into range of Ukrainian weapons. So this has been allowing the Ukrainians to I’m sorry, this has been allowing the Russians to disgorge equipment and men, and especially fuel, excuse me, fighting off laryngitis very close to the frontlines for the last five months of war. Now, with Kirche offline, and it looks like it’s gonna be offline for an extended period of time. They only today removed the destroyed rail cars from the fuel train that got blown up when the bomb went off. And it looks like at least one of the tracks is warped beyond any sort of easy replacement. So replacing the tracks on the section that was completely damaged is going to be a month or two process. Undoubtedly, we also have warping and melting and wreak solidification in the rebar in the concrete. So it’s entirely possible but though both rail lines that go across the bridge are going to be offline for an extended period of time. But let’s assume best case scenario here. Let’s assume that the Russians are able to rip up the rails put up north new rails and that there was no damage to the rebar in the structure of the bridge itself. Unlikely. But let’s assume that it’s going to be about a three week process. When that time, the Russians need to reroute logistics. Now there is a two lane section of the Kirche bridge that is still operational, so they can still move things by truck. And there is the option of ferries operating that can go to terminals. And then of course, there’s options of going through eastern and southern Ukraine direct as opposed to going through Crimea. But none of these are good options. There’s all kinds of restrictions, ammo, man, but fuel is by far the biggest one. Fuel is bulky, and it takes up a lot of weight and space in any transport medium. And a single cistern car and a truck can transport more fuel than three of those giant liquids transport trucks that we see on American highways, which are not what the Russians use, they use once or about 1/3. That size, you’re talking about a six to one ratio, just in terms of the volume. And of course, those trucks, trucks use an order of magnitude more fuel to move the stuff than a train would. So you’re losing a lot on the way. There’s also a distance issue. Right now most of the fuel is coming primarily from the refining and port town of Novus CSK, which is fairly close to the eastern side of the Kirche bridge. Otherwise, you’re going to have to go to Renza or Samira, or if you’re lucky, Belgrade or Belgrade, excuse me, which is further away. And you then have to go through either Don that score Luhansk, or both, before going north of Marissa pole into a metal pole. And now you’re completely within range of multiple Russian Ukrainian weapon systems before you can eventually do a dogleg over to KEARSON. So you’re talking about a trip that instead of a day by train is a week or more by a combined road rail system, because you also have to do an offloading of your train at some point. Otherwise, they’re just going to blow up the cistern systems, the trucks at least have the option of like being able to use back roads. And then of course, there are active insurgencies going on in almost that entire route. So one Javelin is more than enough to take out a fuel truck. And these are civilian fuel trucks because the Russians don’t have a military truck fleet anymore. So a javelin might be overkill and RPG would be plenty small arms fire could do it. So you’re dealing with complications here to the war effort for the Russians that are an order of magnitude more complicated than they were. And even if they started redirecting everything already, it’s going to be at least another week or two before the first of those fresh supplies from rerouted supplies, ultimately make it to the front where they need to be used.
Which means even in the best case scenario for the Russians here, the Ukrainians have a window of at least a couple of weeks. To wear any equipment, they destroy any fuel tanks the destroy cannot be replaced. And if the Ukrainians are going to make a push, now’s really the time to do it. Now, if it turns out that this assessment is wrong and courage bridge gets repaired in short order, then that means that the window has closed very, very quickly, but judging from the damage that is not going to happen this month, probably not next month either. Okay, that’s it for me. Until next time,