Re the road bridge :
Personally I'm still minded towards the bomb-boat explanation. The under-bridge photo linked above is, in my opinion, looking at this wrong. Here is a helpful Maxar shot, taken from the north (NE) with the westbound (towards Crimea) side of the road closest to us. The shipping channel and high bridge is to the right. The wind at the time was blowing from the bottom of the Maxar picture towards the top of the maxar picture.
First observe that there has only been only one explosion and it took place where the sooting is on the surviving bridge deck.
Second if you look at the videos that blast is not just white homogenous smoke of a pure explosive, instead it is streaked with heterogenous coloured matter that indicates that something was mixed in it. Either an enhancer such as aluminium, and/or a jet slug such as copper, or perhaps both. It is hard to be sure what as the CCTV images are low quality. It was the spray from those particles that splashed at high velocity through the rail tank-wagons both penetrating the tank walls and setting fire to the now-leaking fuel cargo.
Third understand how that road bridge failed. That span was lifted upwards by a blast below it. The net thrust of the blast was slightly inboard of the longitudinal axis and has flipped the span slightly towards outboard so that when it landed back down it is flipped slightly northwards and displaced off its origninal bearing points. There is some evidence in the below-bridge picture that there is a hole in the piece of the bridge deck that was just above water level - I am not sure if that is happenstance or if that is a molten penetrator from an upwards-firing shaped charge. We would need close-up photos of the broken span-end to be sure either way. But irrespective that span lifted and failed into two pieces, then fell back. As it lifted it pulled the section to its right (towards the high-bridge / shipping channel) towards it i.e. the right-hand end of that section moved leftwards. That right hand end is an expansion joint segment and so it simply pulled away cleanly and fell off its support points and fell in the water without the span breaking in two - it has dropped into the water because its left hand end has been dispaced laterally (outboard). If you look to the left a couple more segments you see that a third section was similarly pulled off its bearers and has fallen at one end, but because it has only received a longitudinal pull and no lateral pull, the leftmost end has not fallen into the water. Instead it is most likely resting on the pile cap.Again this is where an expansion joint is located.
Fourth, the below-bridge shows very little sooting or other evidence of damage on the visible section of its right-side pile cap and pier. That indicates this was a directional explosion. I find it hard to imagine an ATACM warhead of 500kg punching through the bridge deck, exploding below, and doing so in such a way as to cleanly directionally explode backwards along its rocket motor axis. It seems to me much more likely that this was a c.1,000kg device carried by a bomb-boat that was shaped so as to blast predominantly upwards.
Fifth, there is no evidence I can discern as to which direction the bomb-boat would have conducted its final approach from. The most likely direction is from the Sea of Azov, but there is no evidence either way. Irrespective that is also not evidence that the general approach would have been from that direction - if anything the more likely oute would have been a hooked entrance from the seawards side.
Sixth. The SAM systems didn't go off. And if the Ukraine had ATACMs they would have had more than one and used them simultaneously so as to saturate the SAM defences. And they would definitely have targetted the rail bridge.
BUT - if better evidence comes to light then I'm sure we will hear about it. The above is my best opinion based on the evidence I can see in the public data.
Last edited by petit plateau; 9th Oct 2022 at 07:43.