Ukraine war briefing: Russian attacks on Kyiv bridges cause traffic chaos
Bridge across Dnipro River hit a day after another linking two sides of capital struck, forcing traffic suspensions. What we know on day 1,683A bridge across the Dnipro River in Kyiv was hit in a Russian air attack on Saturday, the mayor said, amid an escalation in strikes on infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital. Emergency services were deployed to the scene, Vitali Klitschko said, and traffic across the Northern Bridge from the east to the west bank was suspended after damage to the road surface and the overhead trolleybus cables. No casualties were reported.The strike came a day after Russia hit a different bridge linking two sides of Kyiv for the second successive day, officials said on Friday. 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 Klitschko held a city security council meeting, describing the situation in Kyiv as “very dramatic”.The strikes on the bridges and other sensitive infrastructure appeared 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, an economic analyst said. 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, officials said. In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest, two people were killed and 32 wounded in a guided bomb strike, the regional governor said.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, Pjotr Sauer reports. But a sharp escalation in Russian attacks has left many residents feeling that some of the hardship they were bracing for is already here.The joint US-Ukrainian reconstruction investment fund has sealed its first critical minerals deal alongside four other new projects, one of its top US officials told Reuters. The fund, established as part of the minerals pact the two countries signed in April 2025 after a push by Donald Trump, is focused on five sectors, from minerals and defence to energy and infrastructure. The fund’s projects now totalled about $70m, said the head of investments at the US International Development Finance Corporation, Conor Coleman. The long-anticipated first minerals deal would inject roughly $30m into a “joint investment platform” with BGV Group, a firm founded by Hennadii Butkevych, the billionaire co-owner of Ukraine’s largest supermarket chain, ATB.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. “Civilians are trapped under siege by Russian forces without access to food, medicine, clean water and basic care. This is unacceptable,” said Hadja Lahbib, whose portfolio includes humanitarian aid. A former resident quoted by AFP said there was no flour left to make bread and in the early days people ate pigeons but now even those were difficult to find.Latvians vote in a parliamentary election on Saturday that is likely to keep power in the hands of its pro-Ukrainian incumbent prime minister, Andris Kulbergs, although deep political fragmentation may complicate the formation of a government. Opinion polls put Kulbergs’s centrist United List ahead, with about 14% of votes, but followed closely by the overtly pro-Russian Sovereign Power. Continue reading...
‘The enemy is tearing our city apart’: terror in Kyiv as Russia ramps up attacks
Mayor Vitali Klitschko says Kyivans can no longer pretend it is ‘peacetime’ amid strikes on school, hospital and bridgeValeriya Tkachenko was dropping her son off at school in central Kyiv when the air raid alert sounded. Staff hurried the children and parents into the shelter, where the frightened lawyer spent the next two hours with her son.“I’m scared to death all day about what could happen to my son,” she said as she emerged from the shelter, already late for work. Continue reading...
