Kiev’s Bridge Problem
Russian forces have begun systematic strikes on Kiev’s
bridges. Road traffic across the Dnieper in the capital’s vicinity is
consequently approaching a complete shutdown.
Broadly speaking, disabling the city’s road bridges would be
enough to paralyze government operations and most businesses in the Ukrainian
capital. Two of these bridges also carry metro lines. With at least a third of
Kiev’s population living on the left bank and working on the right, the
resulting transport breakdown would make normal administrative and economic
activity impossible.
Zelenskiy has already raised the possibility of evacuating
government institutions from Kiev. In his interpretation, “Putin is trying to
drive us out of Kiev.” The practical meaning is clear enough: the Ukrainian
authorities are preparing for the possibility that they will lose the ability
to use the capital as the country’s administrative center and be forced to
leave. This would follow from a Kremlin decision to disable Kiev completely as
a political, administrative, and logistical hub. Under that scenario, strikes
on the bridges would become a sustained campaign, continuing until the
crossings were beyond repair with the personnel, equipment, and resources
available to the Ukrainian authorities.
Such an approach would make sense if a major offensive by
the right flank of Russian forces were being prepared, with reaching the
Dnieper as its minimum objective. That would provide the justification for the
resources required to disable the bridges completely: the northern Ukrainian
grouping on the left bank would be cut off from reserves, ammunition, and other
essential supplies. Its combat effectiveness would deteriorate, forcing a
withdrawal across the Dnieper that would probably involve the loss of most of
its heavy weapons and between a quarter and a third of its personnel.
This would also imply that, should operations on the right
bank become necessary, Russian forces would cross in the south, in the Kherson,
Nikolaev, and Odessa areas, moving into the rear and onto the right-bank supply
routes of the Ukrainian grouping around Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye.
Capturing the southern ports would provide logistical support for Russian
forces on the right bank during the first phase of the offensive. In the second
phase, restored bridges in the Kherson area would supplement maritime supply.
In the third, logistics would rely on bridges in Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk,
captured intact or restored if necessary.
An advance northward along the right bank would, in this
assessment, be easier to execute. Its western flank would rest against
Russian-friendly Transnistria and a militarily weak Moldova. Advancing
southward from the north would require simultaneous operations against the Kiev
metropolitan area, a covering force against a counterattack from the south, and
the repulsion of Ukrainian counteroffensives from the west.
In principle, this sequence would be consistent with Putin’s
summer statements about the approaching end of the Special Military Operation,
his autumn acknowledgment of Ukraine’s unwillingness to engage in constructive
negotiations, and the warnings issued by the Russian leadership to the West at
the end of last week concerning a possible Russian response, including a
nuclear one, to intervention in the fighting in Ukraine.
A second interpretation also remains possible: the strikes
may be intended to exert psychological pressure on the Ukrainian authorities
and compel them to enter constructive negotiations.
First, Kiev has no way of knowing the Kremlin’s actual
intentions and must plan for the worst: the complete destruction of the
capital’s crossings and the isolation of the northern Ukrainian grouping on the
left bank from its rear areas. Given the Ukrainian authorities’ inability to
prevent such an outcome, entering substantive peace negotiations would be a
logical response. As experience suggests, logic and common sense enjoy
intermittent influence over decision-making in Kiev.
Second, Moscow may be pursuing a longer-term scenario in
which the crossings remain standing while their operation becomes progressively
more difficult. The capital would then face a slow-motion breakdown. Government
bodies and businesses would struggle to function as key employees arrived late,
unpredictably, or failed to reach their offices at all.
Keeping every institution on a permanent, live-in footing
would run into some fairly elementary administrative questions: where would all
these people sleep, wash, and eat? Housing and feeding so many employees would
be difficult enough. They would also be worried about families from whom they
had been separated during an exceptionally dangerous period. Government
operations would continue initially, with efficiency reduced severalfold and
declining further toward something close to zero.
The possible scenarios therefore form an escalating
sequence.
1. Psychological pressure to compel constructive
negotiations. Under this scenario, strikes on the bridges would soon cease
or become occasional, causing relatively limited disruption to life in the
capital.
2. A slow-motion breakdown. The objective would be
gradually to displace Ukraine’s administrative and political institutions from
Kiev. The underlying assumption is that relocation and disruption would cost
the regime control over the country and the armed forces, eventually forcing it
to capitulate.
3. Sudden collapse. All bridges in the Kiev area
would be destroyed within one or two months, with restoration impossible until
the fighting ended. The authorities would lose control of the capital and be
forced to leave. Over the following months, military disasters would overtake
first the northern and then the southern Ukrainian groupings on the left bank.
Establishing a defensive line along the Dnieper would be beyond the remaining
personnel and equipment. The hardline Nazis would retreat into Galicia and
Volhynia, attempting to restore a continuous front in western Ukraine.
Judging by the principles that have guided the Russian
authorities so far, a gradual transition between these scenarios would be the
most likely approach, following a strategy of calibrated escalation: first a
demonstration of capability, then the creation of sustained difficulties, and
finally the implementation of the sudden-collapse scenario.
During the first two stages, the main movement of the front
would be toward the Dnieper in the north, through the Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov,
and Poltava regions. The third stage would involve carrying the fighting onto
the right bank and rapidly defeating the southern Ukrainian grouping.
The essential prerequisite for that final stage would be
sufficient production of strike weapons: drones, missiles, and aerial bombs
fitted with UMPK glide-and-guidance kits. Their availability would determine
Russia’s ability to destroy the crossings around Kiev completely and prevent
their rapid restoration.