The Kremlin is intent on showing the attack on the Crimea bridge wasn’t that serious and that the crucial lifeline from the Russian mainland to the illegally-annexed Crimean Peninsula will be back to normal soon.
The physical damage can be restored — Russia immediately dispatched a large emergency team to the site — but the damage to Russia’s prestige and, more importantly, to the image of Vladimir Putin, won’t be that easy to repair.
This is his bridge, his project, built with the equivalent of almost $4 billion from the Russian treasury. It’s a symbolic “wedding band” uniting Mother Russia and Ukraine, or at least a region that still legally belongs to Ukraine, crucial not only to Putin’s war effort but to his obsession with bringing Ukraine back under Russia’s control.
Putin’s February 21st address to the Russian people, delivered just before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, laid…
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