Russia has begun striking Kyiv’s bridges across the Dnipro for the first time since invading Ukraine

In recent days, Russian forces have begun attacking some of Kyiv’s most important transport links: the bridges across the Dnipro River, which had not previously come under attack.On October 1 and 2, Russian drones attacked the Southern Bridge, damaging a bridge support, a guardrail, the road surface, and a concrete barrier along the metro tracks. The bridge remains closed to cars and metro trains. On October 3, the Northern Bridge came under attack. Two people were injured, and the road surface and overhead trolleybus power lines were damaged. The bridge is partially closed to traffic.Kyiv has nine bridges across the Dnipro. Ukrainian experts say drones alone cannot destroy them and that more powerful weapons would be needed. But continued drone attacks could make the bridges unsafe, forcing traffic to stop and severely disrupting transportation around Kyiv. The first strikes on the Southern Bridge have already caused severe traffic jams in the Ukrainian capital.As the strikes on Kyiv’s bridges began, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Vladimir Putin had ordered Russian military commanders to disregard the rules of warfare when carrying out airstrikes on Ukraine. According to Zelenskyy, Ukrainian intelligence services learned of the order from intercepted communications. He said Putin issued it in September, when Russia’s strikes on Kyiv became much more frequent and caused far greater damage to civilian infrastructure.As Russian attacks on Kyiv intensified, The Guardian reported that Western diplomats were preparing contingency plans to relocate their embassies from the Ukrainian capital. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said it knew nothing about these plans. Meanwhile, Russia again called on Western diplomats to leave Kyiv. The evacuation of embassies from the city would be a propaganda victory for Moscow.The war in photographsAt Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.Meduza