Russia Is Targeting Kyiv’s Bridges: How Resilient Are They?

Russia is systematically targeting Ukrainian bridges. Kyiv’s South Bridge has been targeted at least three times in recent days, while the North Bridge has been targeted twice. Both are crucial parts of the capital’s complex transport infrastructure. The South Bridge has six traffic lanes and carries the “green” metro line, while the North Bridge has eight traffic lanes. On Oct. 6, a new bridge in Zaporizhzhia was also targeted.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. So why has Russia begun attacking bridges? Could these strikes destroy them? And what broader risks do they pose? The blast after a drone strike on Kyiv’s North Bridge (Screenshot from open sources) Hard to destroy, but possible to disable The recent spate of attacks on these bridges has not caused significant damage; only the road surface was affected. Repairs caused traffic jams, but road crews patched the damage very quickly. Typical traffic on Kyiv’s Paton Bridge (Photo by Sergii Kostezh/Kyiv Post) Engineers who spoke to Kyiv Post were clear and unequivocal: destroying bridges with drones is practically impossible. The load-bearing structures of Kyiv’s bridges contain dozens of tons of reinforced concrete. Neither a drone nor even a missile can penetrate them easily. Other Topics of Interest Kyiv’s AI Turrets Provide ‘Last-Level’ Protection, Defense Advisor Says With limited numbers and limited range, a presidential advisor cautioned that the new gun turrets should not be seen as comprehensive protection for the whole city. “Individual UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] strikes cannot cause significant damage to massive bridge structures. However, Russia is using a tactic of ‘small cuts,’ in which numerous small strikes can force bridges to close temporarily for inspection and repairs, while also creating a cumulative effect,” says Armed Forces of Ukraine Major Artem Bilyk, a member of the General Staff’s ad hoc expert group coordinating engineering protection solutions for critical infrastructure and a leading co-author of the “Fortress Country” concept. He notes that the main concern may be the precision of the strikes. In particular, if Russian forces can repeatedly hit vulnerable points in a bridge’s structure, serious problems could arise even if the bridge remains standing. “Bridges have sensitive parts – nodes, joints and tensioned elements – that are particularly vulnerable to strikes, especially given that the enemy uses UAVs in a guided configuration through MESH modems. Repeated UAV strikes can disable a bridge even without causing its complete collapse,” Bilyk says. This raises another question: what would happen if Russia used missiles? So far, there have been no attempts to target the bridges specifically with missiles. That is not because Russia lacks missiles, says certified architect and Kyiv-based infrastructure researcher Oleg Grechukh. Rather, missiles lack the necessary accuracy, and bridges are narrow structures – no more than 15-20 meters wide – making them very difficult to hit. “First, a direct frontal hit on the road surface will not cause critical damage. Second, even a ballistic missile with an accuracy of 10 meters can very likely miss the bridge. In that case, it will not cause any damage at all, because the missile will not even produce a significant spread of fragments or a shock wave, as it will land in the deep waters of the Dnipro,” Grechukh says. One example of missiles being used against a bridge was the AFU’s HIMARS strikes on the Antonivskyi Bridge near Kherson in the summer of 2022. HIMARS were used several times in an effort to destroy the only bridge across the Dnipro and prevent Russian forces from escaping Kherson, which was surrounded by Ukrainian troops. Yet even after the missiles hit the bridge, they caused only limited damage, and Russian forces were able to withdraw almost all their soldiers from Kherson before they could be trapped. The conclusion is that strikes are unlikely to destroy the bridges or seriously damage them. So why target them? Exploiting Kyiv’s transport weak point Russia’s objective may lie elsewhere. The apparently random pattern of strikes – first on petrol stations, then internet providers, food warehouses and shops – may look chaotic. In reality, it appears more like a search for vulnerabilities. After several strikes on petrol stations, only a handful of Kyiv’s nearly 700 operating stations were damaged. They were quickly restored. Then came strikes on internet providers. Within hours, however, all had resumed operations, and despite concerns, internet and mobile communications in Ukraine remained available. There was no panic over food in supermarkets either. Now – bridges. The bridge strikes, by contrast, caused enormous traffic jams. Public reaction was anxious: many people chose not to travel to work, while repairs brought parts of the transport network to a standstill and left motorists stuck in traffic for hours. Russian propaganda quickly seized on the disruption. “Our goal is to scatter brains from those who try to cross these bridges,” wrote popular Russian blogger and war observer Ilya Tumanov, known as Fighterbomber. Screenshot from Fighterbomber Telegram page Such tactics are nothing new for Russia. In 1999, Russian forces destroyed Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic; in 2017, they helped destroy Aleppo, one of the world’s oldest cities, in Syria. Russia has, in effect, found Kyiv’s pressure point – one that was never a secret. Ukraine’s capital straddles the broad Dnipro river, which is 600 to 1,000 meters wide within Kyiv and is one of Europe’s largest rivers. Almost 3 million people live on the two banks of the Dnipro within Kyiv; including the suburbs, the figure is close to 4 million. It is a large urban agglomeration with a distinctive imbalance. Residents are split between the two banks at a ratio of roughly 55:45, meaning that almost equal numbers of people live on the left and right banks. The Dnipro river, with its bridges clearly visible. The right bank is on the western side; while the left bank is on the eastern side. (Screenshot: Google Maps) Jobs are not distributed as evenly between the two banks as the population. Some 85% of jobs are on the right bank, which is home to the headquarters of the largest companies, the biggest industrial zones, the government center, foreign embassies and the service sector that supports them. The left bank is not “wild,” as Kyiv residents sometimes joke, but it is predominantly residential. This imbalance, combined with limited public transport on the left bank – especially the metro – creates enormous daily commuter flows. Every morning, hundreds of thousands of left-bank residents travel to the right bank; in the evening, the flow reverses. “Every day, the bridges are crossed by at least 100,000 cars – not counting public transportation,” Grechukh says. Only six bridges carry cars: the North Bridge, Podilskyi Bridge, Metro Bridge, Paton Bridge, Darnytskyi Bridge and South Bridge. A traffic accident on any one of them during the morning or evening rush hour can cause a jam on that bridge. Drivers then divert to the others, which can trigger a wider “transport collapse.” Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, this could happen regularly. Typical traffic jam in Kyiv in 2019 (Screenshot by Sergii Kostezh/Kyiv Post) The problem has plagued Kyiv since the mid-2000s. Many solutions have been proposed: building new bridges, dispersing jobs by encouraging new business centers on the left bank, improving public transport and cycling infrastructure, and encouraging people to drive less. Yet little of substance has been done by 2022. The problem therefore remains. What can be done now? Can anything replace bridges over the Dnipro river? The infrastructure minister proposed building pontoon crossings between the two banks to ease pressure on the bridges, an idea which has some appeal, especially because the Ukrainian military has gained extensive experience building river crossings during the war. Kyiv also has a history of pontoon crossings. During World War II, both Nazi Germany and the Red Army built such crossings after all the bridges across the Dnipro were destroyed in 1941. The engineers consulted for this article, however, do not believe this proposal would work. Because the crossing would have to span such a wide section of the Dnipro, the pontoon bridge would probably be limited to a single traffic lane. “Their capacity would not come close to that of a bridge. There would be one lane with reversible traffic, and speeds would be lower. Moreover, if something happened on the pontoon – erosion by the river or a strike – it would be much harder than on a bridge to reach vehicles stranded there quickly,” Grechukh says. Kyiv Post sources in the Kyiv City Administration agree. “A pontoon is not simply placed on level ground. It needs ramps and exits, which require complex and substantial engineering work. Traffic must also be organized around it, which is difficult given the existing road network,” a source in the Kyiv City Administration says. Another idea embraced by activists is to complete the “Stalin tunnels.” Kyiv has two unfinished sections, in the north and south. Built between 1938 and 1941 during the Stalin era, they were intended to provide trains with a safer wartime alternative to bridges. An unfinished section of Kyiv’s Stalin-era tunnel (Photo by Valentyna Latko/Facebook) But Andriy Shvachko, a senior lecturer at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, says completing them now makes no sense. “From a security perspective, a bridge and a tunnel are equally vulnerable. A tunnel cannot be bombed along its entire length, but its entrance can be struck. From an engineering perspective, completing the ‘Stalin’ tunnels also makes no sense: each was designed for a single-track railway, while Ukrainian railways today are double-track. It would be expensive, time-consuming and uneconomical, and it would not solve the problem. The tunnels also have no provision for road vehicles or pedestrians. They cannot be widened, which is where they lose out to bridges,” Shvachko says. Engineers note that consoles can sometimes be added to an old bridge to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists, if it does not already have such provision. Widening a tunnel, however, is technically unrealistic. “There is a case for designing and building new tunnels, but Ukraine does not have the resources for that now. Completing structures abandoned during Stalin’s lifetime is simply absurd,” one of the capital’s design engineers tells Kyiv Post. How can Kyiv protect its bridges? Bilyk believes that no alternative can match the carrying capacity of bridges, arguing that they should be protected as effectively as possible. “First and foremost, the most critical nodes, key elements and supports of bridges should be reinforced using gabions, blocks and steel sheets. It’s also advisable to install special metal lattice anti-detonation screens around the carriageways. This makes it possible to move the point of the UAV explosion farther away and reduce damage to the bridge. Particular attention should be paid to fire resistance and the protection of flammable or vulnerable elements of bridge infrastructure, which should be enclosed in fireproof armored casings,” Bilyk says. The question is whether Ukraine has sufficient resources – particularly metal – to do this. Recent reports following Russian strikes say that the last of Ukraine’s metallurgical plants has shut down. Before the Russian invasion, the country had five operating plants and numerous factories. Ukraine thus stopped producing steel despite having both iron ore and coal – everything needed for production – and despite being one of the few countries with a fully integrated mining and metallurgical complex. Ukrainian steelmakers, however, are confident that enough metal will be available. “Ukraine still has sufficient capabilities in the design, manufacture and installation of bridge structures, as well as their repair and restoration; missing components can be delivered from abroad if necessary. Ukrainian steel construction plants are certified according to European standards for manufacturing. It should be understood that the enemy began searching for unprotected infrastructure facilities to strike, such as power transmission line supports and bridges, precisely because during the period from 2023 to 2026, hundreds of protective structures were built and security measures were implemented for energy facilities – transformers, generators and other equipment,” says Anna Hontarenko, executive director of the Ukrainian Steel Construction Center association. There may still be a silver lining. One proposal for addressing the crisis includes decentralizing jobs and encouraging industrial and commercial development on the left bank. Another is to revive river transport, including ferries, which ran between the two banks during the Soviet era but declined in the 1990s during the transition to a market economy. Even in difficult circumstances, Ukrainians continue to look for opportunities and seek asymmetric solutions. Could this new wartime crisis ultimately drive changes that make Kyiv better?