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KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine — In a war fought on the expanse of steppe in southern and eastern Ukraine, victory or defeat is in large part decided by the logistics of moving men, weaponry, ammunition, fuel and food over vast distances — all of which could become more difficult for the Russian army after the partial destruction of the Kerch Strait Bridge.

The 12-mile span, part of which now slumps into the Black Sea, had been a linchpin of Russian military logistics for a sprawling land war. The bridge is important for tying Russia with the Crimean Peninsula; the peninsula, in turn, had been used as a staging area for attacks elsewhere in Ukraine.

Since early summer, Ukraine has focused its strikes on supply lines, with the Kerch Strait Bridge marking a cherished prize for a military force that for months has been publicly hinting at its plans to hit the span.

Russia has alternatives for transporting troops to staging areas where they can be reorganized into battle-ready units, but they are more costly, dangerous and time-consuming, Ukrainian and Western analysts and former military officials say. Other options include sailing ships to harbors in Crimea and sending trains and trucks on railroads and roads in other occupied areas of Ukraine.

“The biggest issue is not supplying, the biggest issue is staging,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, said in a telephone interview. “They were getting them ready for the battlefield safely in Crimea, forming battlefield units in Crimea and sending them to the frontline.”

With the bridge partly destroyed, Russia can use roads from the Ukrainian border that wind through the occupied towns of Mariupol and Berdyansk, hugging the coast of the Azov Sea, that weave in and out of range for Ukrainian rocket artillery. Troops would have to form battle-ready units inside Russia and travel longer distances in these formations, a less efficient means of supplying the front lines, Mr. Zagorodnyuk said.

By Saturday evening, rail service had been at least partly restored, and a train with 15 cars had successfully crossed the span, according to a Russian state news agency, Tass. On the undamaged side of the bridge, car traffic had resumed, the head of Crimea, Sergey Aksenov, said in a post on Telegram.

Those coastal routes are closer to Ukrainian positions than Crimea is and so are more vulnerable to attack. As if reinforcing these difficulties, Ukraine on Saturday struck a cargo train with rockets in Ilovaisk, a city in the occupied portion of Donetsk region, Petro Andrushenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said.

“The occupiers now have big problems with supplies from both sides,” from the south in Crimea and from the east via the land borders with Russia, he said.

Railroads, the means of military logistics so preferred by the Russian army that it has whole units dedicated to rail travel, called Railroad Forces, do not connect all areas occupied by the Russians in southeastern Ukraine.

The explosion on the Kerch Strait Bridge will affect Russia’s ability to resupply and reinforce units in the southern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Rob Lee, a Russian military specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, said in an email. Mr. Lee said it was unclear if the Russian military had enough ferries to cross the Kerch Strait to offset the disruption of rail and road traffic.

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said Russian logistics would shift toward a rail line to the city of Melitopol, far closer to Ukrainian front lines than Crimea.

The route, he said, is “vulnerable to disruption” by Ukraine’s army. Hindering Russian resupply efforts would particularly benefit Ukrainian towns near the front line, which have been repeatedly shelled, Oleksandr Vilkul, the military governor of Kryvyi Rih, said in an interview.

“The occupiers managed all supplies for the south over the Crimean bridge,” he said. “Any difficulties for them in these logistics is naturally positive for us.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Frankfurt, Germany.