Known as the ‘Gateway to Crimea’, the Chongar Bridge – reportedly hit by Ukrainian missiles today – is one of the few road bridges connecting Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, to the mainland. It offers an alternative to the Perekop Isthmus, the narrow strip of land connecting Crimea to the mainland. As one Russian military blogger noted, “It accounts for 70 percent of Russian military and civilian supplies to the Kherson region. Although it can be repaired, Russia has no reliable means of preventing missile attacks.” Road access will be doubled by a railway bridge. On the Internet, the Ukrainian military center explains that this bridge “is a strategic element that plays an important role in the logistics of the occupying Russian forces”. Therefore, due to the suspension of traffic through Chongar, Russian trucks will have to divert 100 kilometers from Crimea to occupied Melitopol, which will take at least several hours. The bridge is located 128 kilometers from the closest point of the front line, namely the right bank of the Kherson region.

There are doubts about the weapons used to attack the bridge. Eliminating the Himars, whose range should not exceed 84 km, leaves us with the Storm Shadow missiles and the Ukrainian Vilkha-M missiles, which have a range of 150 km with a 170 kg warhead. The Ria Novosti agency has released a video showing marks on the wreckage of a Storm Shadow missile.