Memes

When Russia took over Crimea, Ukraine cut water supply to the peninsula, depriving civilian population of water for drinking and agriculture (which is a human rights violation) and causing a humanitarian crisis.

So Russia built the longest bridge in Europe to provide water and other essential supplies.

On the first day of the invasion Russian forces reopened the water flow into Crimea, but on the third day of the Ukrainian counteroffensive the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed, causing massive flood in Kherson region and again water shortage and agriculture crisis in Crimea, so the bridge remains vital infrastructure.

Since the beginning of the war Ukraine is trying to blow it up, when they do, Western outlets report it with absolute fucking glee:

Pressure on Putin grows as his ‘jewel in the crown’ bridge to Crimea is blown up

Long threatened, the hated $4bn Russian symbol of Moscow’s occupation of Crimea – one that Russia had boasted was impossible to attack – had been blown up.

The symbolism of the moment – a day after Russian president Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday and just over a week after he announced the illegal annexation of four more Ukrainian territories amid huge pomp in Moscow – was lost on nobody.

But it is not simply the fact this is Putin’s bridge that underlines the symbolism. The blast has real-term consequences too for Putin’s war, coming hard on the heels of a series of humiliating defeats on the eastern and southern fronts that has seen large-scale Russian retreats.