Russian strikes hit the Northern Bridge in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Saturday, two days after the Southern Bridge was targeted several times by drones, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The bridge was hit as air-raid sirens sounded to warn of a drone attack, amid an intensifying wave of strikes affecting the city’s infrastructure.
Southern Bridge closure disrupts transport
Klitschko said on Telegram: ‘The Northern Bridge has been hit and emergency services are on their way.’ The Southern Bridge, which crosses the Dnipro River, was shelled several times on Thursday and Friday morning before being fully closed to vehicles in both directions, causing widespread disruption across the capital’s transport network.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday of disregarding the rules of armed conflict and allowing large-scale attacks on civilian targets. Zelenskyy said Putin had declared last month that ‘there are no longer any rules’, arguing that this had enabled attacks that killed people and targeted civilian facilities, including bridges, hospitals, schools, universities and communications networks.
Zelenskyy added on X: ‘They want people to flee their cities, and we must do everything we can to save our people and our cities.’ In the same context, Klitschko called for Kyiv to remain on a war footing, writing on Telegram: ‘The capital is in an extremely tragic situation... the enemy is tearing Kyiv apart.’
Traffic congestion disrupts movement in Kyiv
The closure of the bridges following drone strikes brought parts of the traffic network to a standstill. Queues of cars and buses stretched along the main roads as passengers tried to find alternative routes, with some forced to complete their journeys on foot. The Southern Bridge is one of eight bridges linking eastern and western Kyiv across the Dnipro River.
Kyiv has faced increasingly heavy aerial bombardment in recent months, leaving it on near-permanent alert and disrupting the daily lives of its roughly three million residents. Air-raid sirens sound almost around the clock to warn of aerial threats and urge residents to seek shelter. Repeated strikes on trains and fuel stations have also damaged the railway and road networks.
Alongside attacks on bridges and transport, strikes on energy facilities threaten electricity and heating supplies in the Ukrainian capital as winter approaches.
