Attack on Kerch Bridge Sparks Deluge of Ukrainian Memes

It was reported that that there had been two explosions on the Kerch Bridge which links occupied Crimea to mainland Russia in the early hours of Monday July 17. It appears that this was an attack by Ukrainian forces possibly using two of its Underwater Unmanned Vehicles” (UUV).

Footage soon appeared on international mainstream and social media platforms showing damage to one span of the road bridge. Not long after that memes also began to appear on Ukrainian social media applauding the attack or ridiculing the Russian response.

Kyiv Post has put together a collection of the better (and printable) examples:

“Where is my bridge?

This cartoon appeared on the “Real Army” Telegram channel in reference to Russian media reports that President Putin is to hold a meeting at 19:00 on July 17 to discuss the situation with the Crimean bridge.

This is a widely shared meme that references both Putin’s intention to hold a meeting about the incident and the (in)famous long table he used when the COVID pandemic was at its peak.

This meme shows the (possibly former) head of the Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, asking the question: “Shoigu, Gerasimov where is this piece of the bridge???”

This is in reference to the long-running feud between Prigozhin and Sergei Shoigu, the Russian minister of defense and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff.

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This meme mocks claims made by Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed "head of Crimea", relating to the defenses that Russia had put in place following attacks on Russian facilities in occupied Crimea.

This uses the recently published report of sightings of a fish off the coast of Taiwan, which is said to be a portent of future earthquakes, to not only show how Ukrainian special forces avoided the Russian defenses but the fact that “an earthquake” was about to happen in Crimea.

This is an old meme that originally appeared in October shortly after the previous attack on the bridge but which has re-appeared today. It depicts the Ukrainian President preparing a barbecue to make use of the burning goods train it says “Happy ‘Cotton’ day to the Crimean Bridge. Cotton is the term widely used on Ukrainian social media to describe any sort of explosives attack against Russian targets.

This shows the former President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, flying a jet aircraft away from the Kerch bridge, suggesting that he has delivered missiles in an attack on it.

This shows Russian technicians inspecting the after-effects of the attack with the investigator in the foreground saying: “Yes, it’s definitely damaged.”

Finally, a tweet from “Bilbo ‘Fella’ Baggins, a member of the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO), a play on NATO, which is an Internet meme and social media movement dedicated to countering Russian propaganda and disinformation about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.