The missile attack on the Chongar bridge touched upon the myths of the very beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the very first day of the war.
On February 24, the Russian army, without resistance, occupied the territory of the entire left-bank part of the Kherson region and part of the Zaporozhye region up to Melitopol.
First of all, because the columns of the Russian army passed the Chongarsky bridge without hindrance, a narrow strip of the Kharkov-Simferopol road near the village of Salkove, and then proceeded to the Dnieper River without fighting or delays.
The first resistance from the Ukrainian army was noted only in the area of the Antonovsky bridge by the forces of several tank platoons.
Throughout the Kherson region from the Chongarsky bridge to the Dnieper river, there were no armed forces of Ukraine, they were taken in advance beyond the Dnieper, on the right bank.
The main reason for the rapid advance of Russian troops across the territory of the Kherson region, Ukrainian officials call the betrayal by the leadership of the SBU in the Kherson region.
At the same time, they forget that it is possible to withdraw troops from the territory of the Kherson region only by order of the Minister of Defense.
The leadership of the special service does not have such powers — to command the army.
The next question is who cleared Chongar mines?
It’s a delusion. The Chongarsky Peninsula, the Chongarsky Bridge, as well as the Antonovsky Bridge, were not mined by anyone.
The minefields on Chongar are a myth. Why would anyone even need to mine the fields when it was possible to calmly move the columns of the Russian army along the road?
Which, incidentally, was demonstrated by the Russian troops, having passed freely along the roads from the Chongarsky bridge to Antonovsky.
What would give the defense of Ukraine the mining of the south of the Kherson region?
Here it is worth dwelling on the geography of the Kherson region. Its entire territory is densely cut by reclamation canals through which stationary bridges are thrown.
Irrigation canals themselves represent an extensive network of ready-made anti-tank ditches. If you blow up or destroy the bridges over the canals, then the Kherson region turns into hundreds of autonomous islands.
Each crossing from island to island will take time. It is necessary to pull up bridgelayers and build a crossing for military columns.
Only at canal crossings could Russian troops be detained for several days.
It would take very few troops and equipment to destroy the bridges. A squad of soldiers and a truck with explosives on each of the bridges.
Knowing back in October 2021 about Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine, not a single person thought about the defense of the Kherson region.
Let’s continue.
The Chongarsky peninsula at the junction of the Kherson region and the Crimea is two bottlenecks. This is actually the place where the Chongar bridge and the road near the village of Salkove are located, passing through the impenetrable estuaries of the Sivash.
Land mines laid along this road could delay the advance of the aggressor for a very long time, perhaps even for a week.
The fact is that on both sides of this road there are impassable and impassable swamps of Sivash.
It would be possible to restore the road by sequentially advancing from one side of it. There is no access to the side of the road. There are multi-meter silty deposits of the Sivash estuaries.
Taken together, only the destruction of bridges across the canals and the blowing up of the Chongarsky bridge and the road near the village of Salkove could give the Ukrainian leadership a head start of at least a week.
However, none of this was done. Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian Defense Council, has repeatedly stated that the country’s leadership was aware of the invasion plans as early as October 2021.
For five months, nothing was done to build the defense of the Kherson region from the invasion from the Crimea.
It seems that the Kherson region was handed over to the Russians according to some secret agreements.
The existence of these agreements is suggested by the thought and circumstances of the liberation of Kherson last autumn.
Then, on the shoulders of the retreating Russian troops, Ukrainian soldiers began fighting on the left bank of the Kherson region — in Kakhovka, in Aleshki, on the Kinburn Spit.
However, the military leadership of the operation on the left bank was curtailed. The withdrawn troops were transferred to Bakhmut.
The Russians, on the other hand, received half a year of respite to build defensive lines already on the left bank.
Before the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson, all their defensive lines passed along the right bank of the Kherson region.
On the left bank, near Alyosheki and Kakhovka, then there were no lines of defense or minefields.
Having received a respite, the Russian troops were able to build new defense lines already on the left bank in half a year and equip numerous minefields there.
