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Written by Kit Klarenberg. Originally published by The Grayzone
The secret British intelligence plot to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge is revealed in internal documents and correspondence obtained exclusively by The Grayzone.
The Grayzone has obtained an April 2022 presentation drawn up for senior British intelligence officers hashing out an elaborate scheme to blow up Crimea’s Kerch Bridge with the involvement of specially trained Ukrainian soldiers. Almost six months after the plan was circulated, Kerch Bridge was attacked in an October 8th suicide bombing apparently overseen by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence services.
Detailed proposals for providing “audacious” support to Kiev’s “maritime raiding operations” were drafted at the request of Chris Donnelly, a senior British Army intelligence operative and veteran high ranking NATO advisor. The wide-ranging plan’s core component was “destruction of the bridge over the Kerch Strait.”
Documents and correspondence plotting the operation were provided to The Grayzone by an anonymous source.
The truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge differed operationally from the plot sketched therein. Yet, Britain’s evident interest in planning such an attack underscores the deep involvement of NATO powers in the Ukraine proxy war. At almost precisely the time that London reportedly sabotaged peace talks between Kiev and Moscow in April this year, British military intelligence operatives were drawing up blueprints to destroy a major Russian bridge crossed by thousands of civilians per day.
The roadmap was produced by Hugh Ward, a British military veteran. A number of strategies for helping Ukraine “pose a threat to Russian naval forces” in the Black Sea are outlined. The overriding objectives are stated as aiming to “degrade” Russia’s ability to blockade Kiev, “erode” Moscow’s “warfighting capability”, and isolate Russian land and maritime forces in Crimea by “denying resupply by sea and overland via Kerch bridge.”
Read the complete blueprint: Support for Maritime Raiding Operations – Proposal
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In an email, Ward asked Donnelly to “please protect this document,” and it’s easy to see why. Of these assorted plans, only the “Kerch Bridge Raid CONOPS [concept of operation]” is subject to a dedicated annex at the conclusion of Ward’s report, underlining its significance.
The content amounts to direct, detailed advocacy for the commission of what could constitute a grave war crime. Markedly, in plotting ways to destroy a major passenger bridge, there is no reference to avoiding civilian casualties.
Across three separate pages, alongside diagrams, the author spells out the terms of the “mission” – “[disabling] the Kerch Bridge in a way that is audacious, disrupts road and rail access to Crimea and maritime access to the Sea of Azov.”
Ward suggests that destroying the bridge “would require a cruise missile battery to hit the two concrete pillars either side of the central steel arch, which will cause a complete structural failure,” and “prevent any road re-supply from the Russian mainland to Crimea and temporally [sic] disrupt the shipping lane.”
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An alternative “scheme” entails a “team of attack divers or UUVs [unmanned underwater vehicles] equipped with limpet mines and linear cutting charges” targeting a “key weakness” and “design flaw” in the bridge’s pillars.
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This “flaw” is “several thin pylons used to support the main span,” which were intended to allow strong currents to flow underneath the Bridge with minimal friction. Ward pinpoints a particular area in which the depth of water around a set of pillars was just 10 meters, making it the “weakest part” of the structure.
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In related emails obtained by The Grayzone, Chris Donnelly, the senior British army intelligence operative and former NATO advisor, declared the proposals to be “very impressive indeed.”
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Reached by phone, Hugh Ward did not deny that he had prepared the Kerch Bridge destruction blueprint for Chris Donnelly.
“I’m going to have a chat with Chris [Donnelly] and confirm with him what he’s prepared for me to release,” Ward told The Grayzone, when asked directly if he drafted the “audacious” plan.
Asked again to confirm his role in the blueprint, Ward paused, then said: “I can not confirm that. I’ll have a chat with Chris first.”
A suicide attack on a $4 billion transportation artery
At dawn on October 8th, an incendiary attack damaged the Kerch Bridge. A truck exploded, setting two oil tankers ablaze, causing two Crimea-bound spans of the roadway to collapse into the sea below, and killing three.
While the affected section was quickly repaired and traffic resumed the next day, Western media has celebrated the incident as the latest Russian embarrassment and failure in the conflict with Ukraine. In some cases, journalists openly cheered and joked about what could plausibly be categorized as a war crime that claimed civilian lives.
The suicide strike targeted a connecting structure between Crimea and mainland Russia constructed at a cost of $4 billion, and whose opening provided a major public relations victory for the Kremlin, reinforcing Moscow’s renewed control of the majority Russian-speaking territory.
Upon its unveiling in May 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin remarked:
“In different historical epochs, even under the tsar priests, people dreamed of building this bridge. Then they returned to this in the 1930s, the 40s, the 50s. And finally, thanks to your work and your talent, the miracle has happened.”
The Bridge has been heavily defended since February 24th, not least because it serves as a major transport route for military equipment to Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Russia has previously promised major reprisals in response to any strike on the structure.
Following the attack, widespread euphoria erupted among Ukrainians, Ukrainian authorities, and Ukraine supporters on social media. Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s national security and defense council, posted a video of the burning bridge alongside a black-and-white clip of Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President — a reference to Putin turning 70 the same day.
Furthermore, Ukrainian media has reported via an anonymous source “in law enforcement agencies” that the attack was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine. Yet, high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including chief presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, are now backtracking, claiming instead that the incident was a Russian false flag.
Such allegations have become commonplace in the wake of incidents in which Ukrainian – or Western – culpability seems likely or indeed certain, such as the Nord Stream pipeline explosions.
Lithuanian ex-Minister of Defense Audrius Butkevičius was involved in secret British intelligence plans to destroy Kerch Bridge.
Laying the foundations of World War III
While the attack on Kerch Bridge did not involve specialist divers, underwater drones or cruise missiles, there are indications that Ward’s plans were shared with the Ukrainian government at the highest levels. In fact, Chris Donnelly forwarded them to former Lithuanian Minister of Defense Audrius Butkevičius, before introducing the pair by email.
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A leading figure in Lithuania’s anti-Communist movement, Butkevičius has admitted to deliberately leading pro-independence fighters into Soviet snipers’ line of fire on January 13th 1991. This incident is sometimes referred to as Vilnius’ “Bloody Sunday,” and is officially observed as the Day of the Defenders of Freedom. Butkevičius and his confederates knew the maneuver would provoke mass casualties, further inflaming the local population against Soviet leadership and encourage regime change, which is why they orchestrated it.
More recently, Butkevičius co-owned Bulcommerce KS, a company that served as “the main intermediary in the supply of Bulgarian weapons and ammunition to Ukraine through third countries,” for use in the civil war in Donbas.
Butkevičius has been credibly accused of working for British intelligence. Email exchanges with Donnelly confirm he is in contact with Guy Spindler, a long-time MI6 officer who was posted in London’s Moscow Embassy concurrently with the infamous Trump-Russia “dossier” author Christopher Steele.
Reached by phone and asked if he reviewed the “Audacious” plan to destroy Kerch Bridge, Spindler told The Grayzone: “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
Contemporary accounts suggest Spindler directly coordinated with Boris Yeltsin at the time of a failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991.
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Butkevičius was also for many years a “senior fellow” at the Institute for Statecraft, a shadowy “charity” founded by Donnelly that manages a number of arm’s length military and intelligence operations on behalf of the British state and NATO, including the now notorious Foreign Office black propaganda unit, the Integrity Initiative.
Leaked Initiative files name Butkevičius as the organization’s key contact in Ukraine at the time of the country’s 2019 election. Three years earlier, he was one of the “escorting personnel” for five Ukrainian intelligence operatives whisked to London by the Institute for Statecraft in order to brief the British military on Russian “hybrid warfare” techniques. Alongside him was Vidmantas Eitutis, who at the time trained Ukraine’s army to conduct “active counterintelligence operations” in Luhansk.
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In the Kerch Bridge sabotage proposal commissioned by Donnelly, Ward asks whether the Russian military knew how vulnerable the bridge supposedly was, and “what countermeasures could be expected” in response to its destruction (see image above).
The blitz of retaliatory missile strikes on Ukraine on October 10th provides a likely answer. It is also probable that if Ward’s outline was followed, Moscow’s reprisal would have been even more deadly, putting the lives of countless Ukrainians – and Russians – at significant risk.
Donnelly was clearly unmoved by such concerns, declaring the plans to be “very impressive indeed.”
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A similar disregard for catastrophic consequences was evident in a private memo authored by Donnelly in March 2014, outlining “military measures” that Ukraine should take following Moscow’s seizure of Crimea.
Stating that, “if I were in charge I would get the following implemented,” Donnelly advocated mining Sevastopol harbor using a “car ferry,” destroying fighter jets on Crimean airfields “as a gesture that they are serious,” using a “big microwave anti-satellite weapon” to take down Russian space installations, and turning to the West for oil and gas supplies.
“I am trying to get this message across,” he concluded. These prescriptions have yet to be implemented, perhaps because they risk triggering an apocalyptic situation. Indeed, such “gestures” would amount to brazen provocations against a nuclear power, from which Ukraine’s oil and gas network was and remains exclusively designed to receive energy.
Yet it appears Donnelly and those around him would be content to see World War III erupt over Crimea. In fact, as the leaked documents obtained by The Grayzone will continue to demonstrate, provoking conflict between the West and Russia has long-been one of his ultimate objectives.
The British are playing a dangerous game,they asset around the world just became fair games if it was up to me .
rondon and cry me a bridge is falling down, falling down, respectively, and disrespectfully, byatch.
#CommieByatches
#HailHitlerByatch!
The only thing that’s falling down is Ukraine’s energy grid.
Get as much comments in as you can, whilst your internet is still up.
Otherwise you’ll have to drive to a McDonalds in Poland.
f7ck you brit.
In Iraq, two SAS officers of Britain were caught dressed in Hijabs shooting and killing opposite tribes in order to start a war between rival groups in Iraq many years ago.
In Nigeria black SAS officers and their Nigeria assets work together with the CIA to sabotage power lines, pylons , the Russian built steel plant and recently involved in kidnapping of people off trains built by China.
These are the results of allowing the devils prostitute free reign over many countries. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Nigeria, now Russia.
Hey kebab, you are confusing hohols and one hysterical psycho cunt from Lithuania with UK as a country.
Proton mail? Who the fuck uses that garbage? Posers for sure. The only use for it is for throw away accounts and it has no security apart regular encryption. And you can call yourself as you wish on it.
Sub Brief on YT shows pictures of the barge laden with explosives directly beneath the deck that dropped. The truck was just bad timing for the driver.
Bin Laden, byatch!
#YouNeedOneUnderYourCommieAss
Let the Hohols vent, these last 2 days have been rough.
Yes you are that hohol.
No big surprise that the British were behind it. The British Empire, now Global Britain, has always been the center of world terrorism. The Russians show great resolve by repairing the damage so the bridge can be functional 100%. From what I read the timing of the explosion might have been too early so it looks like the training the saboteurs received from the Brits was lacking.
For all of their talk about Russia being corrupt, it’s funny how Russia has yet to experience such a massive leak of confidential documents during this war.
Also Nuclear Tsunami on Britain when?
It wasn’t necessarily a “suicide bombing”. Some hapless freight service driver may have just been transporting a package to an address in Crimea for a normal customer (the bomb being detonated remotely).
What will it cost to carry out a comparable attack on the Channel Tunnel. Millions will starve in England and no one will take responsibility. Stop this war while you can.
Obersturmführer Denis “Nika” Nikolitsa, aus der infamous ‘Kharkower SS-Wolfsangel Brigade’ has been fully denazified. His BF in Poltava is devastated, if you are a man and want to support him, you can drive to Poltava, oh well, since there is no more fuel available, better if you go by foot. And take some candles with you, just in case. And some Copium injections.
Unlike in the movies, Mr Bond was always the bad guy killing innocent and created problems
winter is coming in uk and it will be rough…
The British have ceased to contribute anything useful since last century. These days they are nothing but a plague on the world. A menace in need of getting flushed down the tubes
They do have a pretty hot and slutty princess though, not the mutt American one, who could be rented out as a sperm receptacle for bachelor parties and neighborhood gang bangs. After all those boring days and nights with Prince Willy without a willy, she’d love it.
It’s getting to be fun watching the flailing decline of western power. And talk about incompetent, the people that should be embarrassed by the bridge attack are the Ukrainians for such a half assed attack that the bridge is operable and will likely be fully repaired in two weeks or so.
ITS TIME FOR THE LONDON BRIDGE 🤔
The UK believes they are still a world power instead of the poverty stricken island state in front of the coast of Europe. The capital city of the humble servant of uncle Sam will therefore likely be struck in the first salvo if nuclear war breaks out. Their reckless and radicalized politicians are doing anything to making nuclear Armageddon a reality.
that so-called “queen” turned once free prosperous country into 3rd world despotic filthy cesspool full of crime , deviancy ,evil politicians and machete/childrape gangs
That’s right
Nothing new here. British SAS officers were caught in Iraq dressed in Hijabs trying to start a civil war by shooting at opposing tribes.
In Nigeria the same SAS officers with CIA and Nigerian assets damage the Refinery, power lines and pylons and recently are actively involved in kidnapping passengers on Chinese built trains.
I visited Nigeria recently. Two sets of hoodlums kept following me around. I guess they got their orders from either the CIA or SAS to do harm to me.
Similar in Syria and Libya. Now Russia.
These people have been insulated from violence, bloodshed, and war for so long that they’ve become nihilistic. These people are going to cause the apocalypse
The best thing about nuclear war is that Britain is going to be completely eradicated from face of the Earth.
The Chunnel is leaking and the trans Atlantic cables are corroding and the offshore rigs have bad foundations as well as anchors dragging across pipelines.
give me so advanced warning please
Piss shit lemon dick blabber blabber lgbday piss from ass blabber blabber
Nordstream, the Kerch Bridge, and now the US is sending Jeffrey Pyatt to Turkey to sabotage the Turkstream Pipeline. The west needs to sit down and seriously examine their behavior; an adult in the room would be valuable and necessary. Pratt was the one overheard in a phone conversation with Victoria “Cookie Monster” Nuland back in 2015 discussing who would be preferred to be PM of Ukraine.
british russians vs commie brits
#GKYSAhahaha
Based on the short time the truck was delayed by the quick inspection, Would that have put it on the arch when it was detonated?
Video that shows the explosions show the light started from above and slightly to the left, as in a precision hypersonic missile strike, of the ‘truck bomb’. The short stop was made after the truck passed a point where the missile was fired from somewhere in NATOville, that stop means the explosion should have been when the truck was if no stop had taken place.
Bad NATO, bad.
So sick of WARS. Sick of governments not caring about their people. Sick of people not realizing that the money spent on WARS is a fraud. GrayZone is one of the BEST for reporting. Much love and respect for all you do.
Why is the UK so obsessed with Russia and Crimea?
Why has Christopher Donnelly, who started out with Maggie Thatcher and her special adviser the late Timothy Bell (who went on to launch Bell Pottinger, with over $500 million from the Pentagon, in order to spin the Iraq War).
What does Wikispooks have to say about Christopher Donnelly, the founder of Statecraft/Integrity Initiative?
What does Greyzone have to say about Christopher Donnelly and his involvement in trying, emphasis on trying, to take out the Bridge, linking Russia to Crimea?
EXPOSED: Before Ukraine blew up Kerch Bridge, British spies plotted it
KIT KLARENBERG·OCTOBER 10, 2022… well worth reading.
Do not believe the truck story, the bridge was hit by rockets
Yup, believe some inbred kebab calling himself john. He knows better, since je has been a cumdump for his uncles all his life.
Blow up all London bridges NOW.
Time to fire missiles to london, which has already declared war against russia.
“British Intelligence” WTF…lost me right there. These clowns are third rate killers, losers and fags. The filth from Pirate Rock, rabid dogs running after their angloZionaZi masters from the Washing town sewer are going down the toilet and nothing will save these scum bags. The clowns on Pirate Rock, being overrun by imported machete wielding colonials from the plundered ex colonies, are run by “king” Charley, the pedovore demon, brother of pedophile Randy Andy and best buddy of necromancer Jimmy Saville are all subhuman Satanic scum that imagine the rest of humanity will indulge their perversions and follow them to hell.
Of course Mother Russia has other plans for the has been, gone-to-seed snaggle tooth filth.
Meanwhile to Odessa
Z