Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko warned on Friday that Russian strikes on critical infrastructure were "tearing Kyiv apart," as attacks on a key bridge brought traffic to a standstill and forced authorities to close one of the city's main crossings over the Dnipro River.
"The capital is in a very dramatic situation," Klitschko wrote on Telegram. "It's no longer possible to pretend that we can live now as we lived in peacetime. The enemy is tearing Kyiv apart."
The comments came after another wave of drone strikes hit the Southern Bridge, one of eight bridges connecting the city's east and west. The cable-stayed bridge has been struck several times since Thursday, with new attacks confirmed by Klitschko on Friday afternoon. The nearby Paton Bridge remained open in one direction only, though there were no reports it had been hit.
Commuters faced hours of delays as long lines of cars and buses gridlocked main roads. Tetiana Osypenko, a 49-year-old seamstress, told reporters she had been travelling for three hours to get to work. "There's just no way to get there. Nothing. It's impossible to cross the bridges today," she said.
War footing in the capital
Kyiv has largely been spared the ground devastation seen near the frontline in eastern Ukraine, but recent months have brought near-constant aerial bombardment. Air raid sirens sound almost round the clock, urging the city's estimated three million residents to seek shelter. Repeated strikes on trains, petrol stations, and energy facilities have disrupted transport and threaten power and heating as winter approaches.
Osypenko said previous disruptions to subway services during air raids had forced her to spend the night in a metro station near the Southern Bridge. Loss of earnings compounds the financial pressures caused by the war, she added. "You just spend the whole day feeling completely beaten down."
The latest attacks killed one person and wounded at least two others when a 25-storey residential building was hit in southeast Kyiv. In Kharkiv, two people were killed and dozens more injured when Russian shelling hit residential areas, according to mayor Igor Terekhov.
President Volodymyr Zelensky accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of ripping up the rulebook of armed conflict by sanctioning massive attacks on civilian areas—an accusation the Kremlin has rejected. On X, Zelensky cited unnamed intelligence and people around Putin, saying the Russian leader had declared last month that "there are no rules now."
"The Russians couldn't occupy us. So now they are doing massive attacks and massive killings," Zelensky said in remarks first made in a Financial Times interview. The Kremlin made no immediate public response.
Call for tougher sanctions
Zelensky urged tougher sanctions to prevent Russia from manufacturing jet-powered drones, which are harder to intercept. Russia's production of the weapons was "critically dependent" on foreign components, he wrote on social media on Friday. "Every Russian drone can actually be stopped right at the production line. What is needed is the political will of these countries," he added.
He has repeatedly called on Ukraine's Western allies for more military support, particularly for US-made Patriot missile interceptors. On Thursday, he said Ukraine had used its FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, without disclosing where or what it had been used against. He also said Ukraine was testing five of its own interceptors against drones.
Ukraine's military on Friday said it struck an oil refinery in Volgograd and another facility in Samara, both in southwest Russia, for allegedly supplying fuel to Russian forces. Kyiv also dismissed reports that its F-16 fighter jets—another key tool used against jet-powered drones—could be grounded due to delays in maintenance inspections and the supply of parts.
The situation in Kyiv echoes broader concerns across Europe about the resilience of critical infrastructure. As Russian strikes cripple Ukraine's power grid, the EU has been expanding its Mediterranean naval mission to counter Russia's shadow fleet, while NATO leaders have sought to dismiss Russian nuclear threats. The war's ripple effects are also felt in EU politics, with some leaders urging dialogue with Russia despite the ongoing aggression.
