Revered Ukrainian general on possibility of striking Crimean Bridge

Now that Russia has launched all-out war in Ukraine, and Kyiv has taken delivery of sophisticated modern long-range Western artillery and missile systems, the possibility that Ukraine might indeed destroy the hated bridge had increased. But how likely is it to happen?

In a video posted on Ye Pytannia YouTube channel on July 2, General Serhiy Kryvonos, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council and first deputy commander of the Special Operations Forces in 2016-2019, commented on the possibility of strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the Crimean Bridge and other targets in Russia with long-range multiple rocket launchers.

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"As for the Kerch Bridge, the decision will be made by the chief director of this war, General (Valeriy) Zaluzhnyi, because he is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," Kryvonos said.

“Time will tell what his decision will be, but I, for one, would leave a tiny gap for those rats who will flee from Crimea – when we go to liberate Crimea – so that they can escape from our land faster.”

At the same time, Kryvonos noted that Ukraine has not only the U.S. HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, but also its own Vilkha and Vilkha-M systems, which have a range of up to 120 kilometers.

“But we failed to invest money in the development of our own defense and industrial complex,” the general said.

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“And remember that even in January of this year, the Verkhovna Rada took away UAH 50 billion ($1.7 billion) that was to have gone to the budget of the Armed Forces. Do you know how many of our own weapons we could have bought for the Armed Forces for UAH 50 billion? This is quite a decent number. And now, with a begging bowl, we are demanding this and that — and we believe in some miracle weapon. It’s not a matter of getting a miracle weapon, but finding the targets that need to be hit, and the accuracy in blasting these targets.”

Read also: Kremlin reacts to Ukrainian official saying Russia’s bridge to Crimea might be attacked

The Main Intelligence Directorate under the Ministry of Defense announced in June that it had received the technical documentation on the Crimean Bridge.

The Crimean (Kerch) Bridge is an illegally built bridge across the Kerch Strait that connects Russia with the Ukrainian peninsula that it has occupied since 2014. Through it, the aggressor country transfers its troopsand equipment to Crimea, and then to the south of Ukraine.