The latest strike on the bridge near Chongar has again put the security of southern logistics routes under scrutiny. Military correspondent Alexander Kots told NSN that the Novorossiya highway and other key roads need more than isolated countermeasures; they require a unified defensive network built around radar systems, detection tools and air defense assets.

Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Kherson Region, earlier said that the bridge near Chongar on the border with Crimea had once again been damaged in a Ukrainian Armed Forces strike. According to him, air defense crews destroyed more than 20 drones as they approached the crossing.

Kots said the entire route should be covered by air defense systems from Taganrog to the Chongar border checkpoint. He noted, however, that no air defense system in the world can offer an absolute guarantee, while stressing that protection along this axis still has to be built.

According to the war correspondent, all the necessary tools for such work already exist. He described the task as a comprehensive one: radar stations, detection systems, airborne drone-interception assets and mobile fire groups should operate along the highway. As an example, Kots pointed to Ukrainian Hornet drones, which he said are being used in attempts to disrupt logistics, while adding that these aircraft are not something exceptional.

He said such drones are already being shot down by Rubicon and Vega units, and also mentioned the separate 50th Varyag brigade of unmanned systems. In his view, what is needed is a common structure with radar and detection assets deployed along the route, using both airborne interception tools and mobile fire teams. The aim, he said, should be a single defensive system covering the entire highway rather than fragmented responses.

Kots added that the issue is not limited to the Novorossiya highway. Similar protection, he said, is needed on the Mariupol-Donetsk, Donetsk-Lugansk and Lugansk-Starobelsk routes.

He also did not rule out that the opposing side’s actions could be part of a broader plan to blockade Crimea. In his assessment, after the Chongar strike, the next targets for the Ukrainian Armed Forces could be bridges on routes through Armyansk and Perekop, since that road remains a longer bypass option.

Kots separately drew attention to attacks on the railway. He did not exclude that the Crimean Bridge could again become one of the targets this year as part of an effort to cut the peninsula off from its main transport routes. He described the situation as broader than the Novorossiya highway, saying it reflected a comprehensive attempt by the opposing side to blockade the Crimean Peninsula.

Earlier, a Ukrainian drone struck the diesel locomotive of a Moscow-Simferopol passenger train. The driver was wounded, and his assistant was killed. No passengers were injured.