A Russian strike damaged Kyiv’s Northern Bridge on Saturday, injuring two people and disrupting traffic, a day after repeated attacks left the capital’s Southern Bridge closed, Ukrainian officials said.
Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klitschko reported that the latest strike damaged the roadway and the power supply for trolleybuses, suspending some traffic across the Dnipro River. The Southern Bridge, which carries both road traffic and the city’s subway, was hit five times in less than 24 hours and remains shut.
Ukrainian officials said the successive attacks are effectively dividing the capital, which is split by the Dnipro. The right bank hosts most business centres, offices and government institutions, while the left bank is largely residential and home to at least 30 percent of the city’s population.
Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed the strike on the Northern Bridge, stating it was used to move Ukrainian troops and military supplies. It also claimed to have targeted a logistics centre in the Kyiv region. Local military administration head Tymur Tkachenko said a warehouse and production facility were hit there, injuring four people.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russia launched 157 attack and decoy drones overnight into early Saturday, of which 131 were shot down or neutralised.
Klitschko described the situation in the capital as critical. “The capital is in a very dire situation. And it is no longer possible to pretend that we can live as we did in peacetime,” he said. “The enemy is laying waste to Kyiv. Infrastructure, critical infrastructure, logistics, housing, social facilities. The aggressor has also resumed its destruction of the energy sector. We are doing everything in our power to keep the city functioning under constant destructive attacks, when it is no longer a question of our usual comforts, but of safety and survival.”
He called on society to “unite, as we did in February 2022.”
The attacks form part of an intensified Russian campaign against Kyiv that accelerated in late August, taking advantage of limited Ukrainian interceptor stocks.
