ORAC

Link from the following post.

This page has quickie analysis by engineers https://theconversation.com/crimean-...-damage-192161
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That page has this link https://archive.org/download/crimean-bridge which has a link to a 242pg PDF of the Kerch design documents and diagrams ... in russian (naturally). It's all engineering geek and russian to me.

MikeSnow

Alexander Kots, a Russian journalist and propagandist, claims the explosives used to damage the bridge came from Bulgaria:

https://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=217022

fdr

Wow!

Are these guys gonna do a sequel to this novel?

They know what a charge was rolled in (spoiler, it wasn't aspic, but that would make the story easier to swallow)
They know the nationality of a person who was smart enough to write a Jason Bourne novel, but then gave his passport details? Homer Simpson, you are now redundant...
They know the truck movement down to the second... apparently... yet didn't see fit to inspect the load for nitrates, and cooking foil hid bang? TSA, we have a problem... be on the lookout for rolls of al-foil wrapped around sneaker laces!
So, how did the bomb know when to go off? The journey wasn't built in a day, but apparently burnt like Rome, neatly in the middle of the bridge. Who lit the fuse? on the bomb, painted black, with BOMB written along its side, and with the I DID IT written a hundred times in letters 10' tall, Monty Python would be proud. (...Splitter!")
These guys are really really really good investigators. How did they get that information from the Bulgarians during border closures? they walked there on water? "Dobra Deyn, Da! ve are from FSB, and want our agents passport back, Da? Spasiba!"
The Georgians who just love Putin, after all, he has only attacked them 4.5 times in 30 years, welcome FSB dudes into Georgia to get info on an event that includes using Georgia as an accomplice and threatens yet another attack from their favourite playmate?
Golly.
This is slightly less plausible than the false passport carrying poisoners visiting Salisbury as Salisbury has a world famous clock...:

“Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town,” said a man who identified himself on air as Alexander Petrov."Boshirov said the two had gone to visit Salisbury Cathedral, “famous not just in Europe. but in the whole world. It’s famous for its 123-metre spire, it’s famous for its clock, the first one [of its kind] ever created in the world, which is still working.”While they walked around Salisbury, he added, the two men “maybe approached Skripal’s house, but we didn’t know where it was located”.
The probability that this was FSB and not Ukraine just went through the roof. I'm calling the "liar liar pants on fire" level of probability on the FSB having concocted the attack, and that remarkably would appear to be synchronised with Putin and his plan to attack Ukraine soft targets which appears to have been planned before the attack... temporal worm holes thingy happening. That would suggest that the Army is being set up for an (in)voluntary suicide pact, clearing the decks of at least one of the likely successor teams to Vlad and his munchkins. Vlad is from the dark side, if only because East Germany didn't have mouch wattage in it's lighting when he was a short little desk officer in the exotic backwaters East of the Wall.

Smells like the manure wasn't just used in the bomb... also smells like the same setting for the 1917 revolt, and really, that is justified, Vlad is quite revolting.

"If it sounds too god to be true, it is!"

IMHO.

Bombimg of the bridge was probably FSB. They just showed their periscope and their boat of evidence is as buoyant as the Kursk was.

fdr

look at the video again... it's riveting stuff.
Wind is from the trucks right, and the fireball and sparklers (additives) are coming from the right and behind the position of the truck,... as they would for a bomb set under the bridge and having a shock dispersed laterally and rising around the span. At that point, the pressure differential will cause an inflow into the area in the lee ops the explosion, and that seems to be observed, but it could be time to go to spec savers... (it is a wake effect at that point, separated flow, boundary layer sort of geeky stuff... )
Look at the on coming cars lights. it is proximate to the truck, having just passed it in the opposite direction, and a bomb apparently from Bulgaria in the truck arranged by the dastardly Ukrainians goes off with enough force to blow the phlegm out of the RH back spans, yet, doesn't muss up the green hair of the wig on the driver of the car that is beside it. Most times, when you have a bang that is big enough to drop a large bridge, it will give a bit of a shockwave and yet, didn't happen here. That may be cuz the bomb wasn't in the truck, despite the story from the FSB, but was under the span. We see the span underside that is on the other side of where the pier was to the detonation, a replay of the July 44 Valkyrie bomb D'oh!.

Fly-by-Wife

Given that there was not much more than 48 hours between the bridge bombing and the "retribution" missile strikes, carefully orchestrated in multiple waves across 4 or more separate launching areas, from Belarus to the Black Sea, it does look suspiciously like a false-flag op to justify lashing out at civilians.

Redlands

The CCTV looks no better even when slowed a little, although the white flash appears to begin prior to the tin foil going poof.

MikeSnow

The camera used is not fast enough show anything significant during those 3 frames, other than the position of the vehicles at the moment of the explosion. In particular, the second frame doesn't prove that the flash came from the bottom, or that the vehicles were intact at the time of the flash, as some may think. It's most likely a rolling shutter effect. Meaning the camera sensor scan position was towards the bottom of the sensor at the moment the flash happened, and the top part of the image in the second frame was recorded before the flash.

Lonewolf_50

Color me skeptical on the false flag operation.

Redlands

@MikeSnow, thanks for the explanation.

Petit-Lion

Indeed. Reminds me of some theories about leveling multi-billion dollars worth of real estate to go bombing poppy fields far far away.

MPN11

Concur ... too detrimental to RU operations.

magyarflyer

also can any one comment on the likelihood that a train with fuel containers was parked "accidentally" at the exact site of the conflagration? Is that a coincidence? Looking at the photos last night i could not stop questioning myself why was there a train at the exact spot where the blast occurred.

Lonewolf_50

What other conspiracy theories are your favorites?
A P-8 attacking the Nordstream pipeline?
No landing on the moon?
9-11 was an inside job?
The word 'coincidence' is built for the fact that things sometimes happen coincidentally.
Warning: Aviation Content Follows!
Battle of Midway is an example of this: the American dive bombers headed out to bomb the Japanese carriers, trying to put them out of action if they could. That the Japanese air wings were refueling and re arming at the time was a lucky break for the American attacks.

Video Mixdown

Speaking of unlikely coincidences, anyone else seen this story that's going round?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russian-ju...133300212.html

20driver

Railways all have their procedures. I spent a few summers working on the tracks and frequently strings of cars were parked in odd places. It is almost always a pattern as railways run on very rigid schedules.
Given the amount of the time that went into this I am sure the Ukraines had the rail operations dialed in and grabbed an two fer.
The rail bridge is supported on deep metal girders and they have without doubt suffered some serious alteration and not in a good way. In normal times the resistance of the girders would be taking a serious write down at least till some metallurgical testing was done. I know off several cases where tankers burned under overpasses and the span had to be replaced.
I don't think the RU would have done this. Putin hardly needs an excuse to launch missiles and this is very big egg on the face as well as serious potential to disrupt logistics.

cynicalint

Well it makes a change from window diving, involuntary suicide injuries and unenforced toxin ingestion! Plus, there will be no requirement to produce a body.

Winemaker

Here's an interesting article on Russian media reporting on the war, worth a read IMHO.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/russian-me...180231942.html

meleagertoo

I continue to be amazed that people are still calling this a truck bomb when the videos available clearly show the only truck in the vicinity a considerable distance past the source of the blast and another video that clearly shows the bow of a fairly fast moving boat appear in exactly - that is EXACTLY - the place and time of the blast.

Failure of the Ukrainian regime to claim this coup is not surprising as there are clearly independant Ukranian partisan groups operating freely within Russia (eg that blast at the Navy warehouse yesterday - unless you believe it was yet another careless smoker...)and not necessarily in contact with or under cntrol of Kiev.

Russia is home to hundreds of thousands of native Ukranians and if they conspire to dusrupt whatever they can disrupt here and there Russia has an additional problem in its midst. Apparently random Air Force basearms stores and Naval warehouse explosions within Russia are unlikely to be unconnected with this crisis. I suspect Ukraine has a useful number of cells or sleeper units ingrained into Russian society and if they can cobble together a boat-bomb or other disruptive device then they will do do - independently.

Bless'em.

MikeSnow

While I'm not 100% against the boat hypothesis, and those waves under the bridge before the explosion are one of the first things I've noticed in the videos, there is however no clearly visible boat bow as you claim. Also, there are somewhat similar waves forming even after the explosion near the road bridge, and a lot of waves form near the railway bridge too, both before and after the explosion. The sea was quite rough, so that wave might just be a coincidence. Such waves can easily form naturally around an obstacle, such as those bridge piers.

As for the truck bomb hypothesis, you claim the truck is at a considerable distance past the source of the explosion. Looking at the videos with the damage after the explosion, and comparing them the video of the explosion, the truck is just beginning to climb, and the most damage seems to be in the same area.

I liked the boat hypothesis too initially, but at the moment I think the truck hypothesis is more likely.

fdr

I would not consider myself to be prone to conspiracy theory, although, come to think of it, still wonder about how a 6.5 x 52 Carcano that two exemplars retain solidity suddenly behave like 5.56 x 45, which was a relatively uncommon round, having entered production 2 years later. Colour me unconvinced on that one.
On moon landings, they were a remarkable achievement then and remain so now.
On Russia and Novichok, Polonium and other whoopsies I go with FSB or GRU involvement as the whim takes the Dear Leaders fancy.
On Kerch, I find it difficult to believe the evidence as presented in 3 days from multiple hostile areas to the Russians is the stretch of imagination. I suspect that there was a D'oh moment that the amount of damage was greater than expected, but I also think it is misdirection as to where the explosion occurred.
The blast effect to the car coming towards the camera need further assessment, but it appears quite inconsistent with a blast centred on the truck trailer, it does not appear to be in a direct line to the blast, and the railing in between does not appear to provide a lot of lee.
If it was the truck, how was it timed for detonation? was this an area on a strategic site with purported high security that didn't jam cell phone signals or disrupt GPS?
Was it conceivable that Russian resistance did the attack? of course, that was suggested early on, but why would they go through an elaborate process that was apparently led with an open trail of breadcrumbs as to whodunnit, and more concerning, howtheydunnit.
Ukraine not admitting responsibility is not evidentiary, but the FSB finding all of the manner by which it was done neatly packaged and published smacks of involvement, and there is no question that such an act has a rallying around the flag effect for Vlad, and the downside only arises from the screwup of the conversion from pounds to kilograms or otherwise, that led to serious damage to the bridge.
I am surprised by the lightweight structure of the bridge, and for spans in an area of geologic instability that was unexpected, but, hey, California didn't do any better with preparations on their roadways for reasonably foreseeable events. Still, the explosion looks to have more theatric intent than rapid deconstruction, and looks like someone is not going to get an Xmas card from Vlad.
Do I believe in conspiracies? Not usually, I have conducted sufficient air accident investigations to be used to stochastic outcomes from improbable events, and tend towards Occam's Razor, that stuff happens (if you wait long enough). Where Russia is concerned, Grigory Potemkin didn't help skeptics to any announcements from "official" sources within the Government. They have a history of happily sacrificing their citizens to make a self serving propaganda point.
I have suggested here and directly to Ukraine that the Kerch bridge needs to be removed, but not much here supports the contention on reflection, that Ukraine did this. Would be happy if they had, but it doesn't sit well at present.
I remain "liar liar" level sceptical that this was Ukraine, as much as I would like to say it was.
Looking down the road, to the truck as it climbs the gradient for the first ~2 seconds, at.. what 80KM/hr? 22m/sec...? so it has gone past the start of the gradient by less than 50 mtrs... (150' for USA) look at the image 1 second after the detonation, and look at what is visible. Seems odd to this AAI that there is gallons of smoke n' stuff to the north of the truck, away from the railway, and a lot out to the south as well, yet the area that would be shadowed by a charge set under the span is curiously clear, no smoke, details clearly visible etc.... neat trick for the truck bomb, it was apparently the new blast wave that is in a box trailer of flimsy panel construction, but able to direct the shock wave from a spherical + reflected wave front development. Gotta get hands on that flow modifier trick!