President Vladimir Putin’s next steps in Ukraine may become clearer after he meets Monday with his top security officials, two days after a massive blast ripped through a key bridge that links annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland.
The 12-mile Kerch Strait Bridge was a signature project for Putin after the peninsula was annexed in 2014. Costing billions of dollars, the road-and-rail span was meant to symbolize the permanence of Russia’s earlier land grab in Ukraine. Putin opened the bridge himself by driving a truck across it.
Kyiv hasn’t officially taken responsibility for the Kerch incident, although it commemorated the explosion within hours with a new postage stamp. Yet the ability to target a structure thought to have been heavily secured is another embarrassment for Putin’s military as his ground forces struggle in eastern and southern Ukraine.
“This incident will likely touch President Putin closely; it came hours after his 70th birthday, he personally sponsored and opened the bridge, and its construction contractor was his childhood friend,” the U.K. Defense Ministry said in a daily update on Twitter.
The bridge was again partly operational on Sunday, even as large chucks of roadway languished below the surface of the strait. Russia also plans to increase ferry crossings from the Krasnodar region to Crimea.
“The explosion will not permanently disrupt critical Russian lines to Crimea, but will likely increase friction in Russian logistics,” said analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank.
No reason was given for Putin’s security council meeting, which was announced by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. The meetings typically gather top state officials and the heads of Russia’s defense and security agencies to discuss matters of national importance.
Putin last had a meeting with the security council on Sept. 29 to discuss his partial mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine. He met members of the council four times in September, according to data on the Kremlin website.
Russian hard-liners renewed calls for more decisive action in Ukraine. Moscow’s troops, in turn, increased their bombardment of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, a city around 30 miles from the nuclear power plant of the same name.
At least 13 civilians were killed in the strikes Sunday morning, Ukrainian officials said, with around 90 more wounded and rescue teams still picking through the rubble of several apartment blocks and private homes. They said more than a dozen missiles were launched from Russian jets.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s forces are “doing everything we can to defend Ukrainian skies.”
“It is one of the highest priorities for our diplomats to speed up the decision of our partners to provide Ukraine with modern and effective anti-aircraft systems in sufficient quantity,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Saturday.
Also over the weekend, Russia’s defense ministry announced the appointment of a new commander for its forces in Ukraine — Air Force General Sergei Surovikin.
Surovikin most recently has been in charge of Kremlin troops in southern Ukraine, and was reportedly responsible for Russia’s capture of Lysychansk in Luhansk province in July. In the past he led Russian forces in Syria, where Kremlin troops carried out a bombardment campaign that destroyed much of Aleppo, the nation’s second largest city.
His appointment “has generated positive feedback with the nationalist community” of Russia, who lauded his “tough” character, the Institute for the Study of War said.
