Russia struck a bridge across Kyiv's Dnipro River for the second straight day, part of an intensifying air campaign that has snarled traffic across the Ukrainian capital. A senior Ukrainian official links the surge to a Kremlin order loosening constraints on Russia's air campaign, while Kyiv presses allies for more interceptor missiles ahead of winter.
An evening drone strike hit the closed Southern Bridge on Friday, the latest in a series of attacks since Thursday that forced the full or partial suspension of traffic across it and two other bridges spanning the Dnipro River. Long traffic jams snaked through Kyiv in the morning and evening as residents adapted to near-constant drone attacks in recent weeks.
Bridges cut off daily commutes
Over a third of the capital's 3 million residents lived on the eastern, or "left," bank of the Dnipro before Russia's 2022 invasion, but most jobs and government institutions sit on the western, or "right," bank. Economic analyst Andriy Shevchishin said on Facebook that about 500,000 people commute from the left to the right bank daily. Mayor Vitali Klitschko held a city security council meeting to assess the risks, describing the situation as, according to Reuters: "very dramatic."
Left-bank residents have also borne some of the worst power and heating outages each winter of the war. The Troyeshchyna district had no heating for over a week last winter in sub-zero temperatures, and memories of that winter, the worst of the war, loom over the latest strikes.
Casualties mount and Putin eases constraints
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 Kyiv on Friday. In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city, two people were killed and 32 wounded in a guided-bomb strike, according to the regional governor.
A senior Ukrainian official said the strikes on bridges and other infrastructure appeared linked to an order by President Vladimir Putin last month to scrap constraints on Russia's air campaign, first reported by the Financial Times. Russia has since summer launched dozens of fast, jet-powered drones a day at Ukraine, whose defenses have struggled against them.
Kyiv seeks interceptors and ammunition
Ukraine is pressing allies for more hardware ahead of winter. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Poland, Belgium and Spain had agreed to supply 20mm rounds for cannons on Ukraine's F-16 jet fighters, with a possible deal for several million more rounds in the near future. He also said Ukraine needed at least 300 Patriot interceptor missiles for a minimum level of winter protection, as Moscow is thought to be producing 120 to 140 ballistic missiles a month with 600 already stocked.
Source: Commodities & Futures News
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