KYIV — A Russian strike hit Kyiv’s Pivnichnyi (Northern) Bridge on Saturday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, injuring two people and damaging the roadway and trolleybus wires as Moscow intensifies attacks on the capital’s river crossings, the BBC reported.
The Northern Bridge strike followed repeated drone hits this week on the Pivdennyi (Southern) Bridge. Klitschko had warned Friday that “the enemy is tearing Kyiv apart” after a defence-council crisis meeting. Traffic from the left to the right bank on the Northern Bridge was blocked Saturday, he wrote on Telegram. The two spans over the Dnipro link western and eastern Kyiv and had not been struck before Thursday.
Russia said its drones hit bridges used to move Ukrainian troops and military cargo and again urged foreign citizens, including diplomats, to leave Kyiv. Experts quoted by the BBC said drones are unlikely to bring the bridges down but repeated hits can force closures and weaken structures already strained by heavy traffic. Ukrainian lawmakers have discussed ferry and temporary pontoon contingency plans.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a Financial Times interview excerpt cited by the BBC, said Russia wants to destroy bridges, data centres and civilian networks so people flee, casting Putin as deciding there are “no rules now.” Putin has framed the campaign as a response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy sites.
Sources: BBC News
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