Ukraine war briefing: Russian attacks on Kyiv bridges cause traffic chaos
Russian air attacks on bridges spanning the Dnipro River in Kyiv have caused severe traffic disruption, with authorities suspending traffic across the Northern Bridge on Saturday after damage to the road surface and overhead trolleybus cables.
Emergency services were deployed to the scene following the strike, which hit a bridge across the Dnipro River in Kyiv on Saturday. No casualties were reported, but traffic across the Northern Bridge from the east to the west bank was suspended.
The strike came a day after Russia hit a different bridge linking two sides of Kyiv for the second successive day. An evening drone strike on the closed Southern Bridge was among a series of strikes since Thursday that forced the full or partial suspension of traffic across it and two other bridges spanning the Dnipro.
Long traffic jams snaked through the city in the morning and evening. Before the Friday attack, Mayor Vitali Klitschko held a city security council meeting, describing the situation in Kyiv as 'very dramatic'.
Bridge damage causes traffic chaos
The strikes on the bridges and other sensitive infrastructure appear to be linked to an order Vladimir Putin made in September to scrap constraints on Russia’s air campaign, a senior Ukrainian official said.
About 500,000 people commuted from the Dnipro's left bank to the right bank daily
Escalation in Russian attacks
Kyiv is entering its most difficult period since the early days of the invasion, as intensifying Russian attacks reshape everyday life in a capital that Moscow is seeking to plunge into darkness. For weeks, the main worry in the Ukrainian capital had been the coming winter, but a sharp escalation in Russian attacks has left many residents feeling that some of the hardship they were bracing for is already here.
Casualties and wider impact
Earlier on Friday, one person was killed and two injured in a Russian drone strike that caused a fire on the upper floors of an apartment building. In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest, two people were killed and 32 wounded in a guided bomb strike.
Russia must provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky as the situation there is 'appalling', a European commissioner said.
