Russian airstrikes choke bridges across Dnipro River in Kyiv

On October 2, Russia launched airstrikes that blocked access to two bridges in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, stranding thousands of residents. The Southern Bridge, a key route connecting the city's eastern and western banks, was targeted for a second day in a row, according to officials. This is part of an escalating sequence of air attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure, disrupting daily life in the country.

The evening drone strike on the closed Southern Bridge followed a series of assaults since Thursday, forcing full or partial suspension of traffic across the bridge and two other bridges spanning the Dnipro River. Long traffic jams formed in the city's morning and evening rush hours as residents adapted to the almost constant Russian drone attacks in recent weeks.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko convened a city security council meeting to assess the risks, describing the situation in Kyiv as "very dramatic". Over a third of Kyiv's 3 million residents originally lived on the eastern, or left, bank of the Dnipro River before Russia's 2022 invasion, but most now work on the western, or right, bank where most government institutions and companies are located.

Earlier on Friday, a drone strike killed one person and injured two others in an apartment building on the upper floors of the building, resulting in a fire.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, two people were killed and 32 were wounded in a guided-bomb strike, as reported by the regional governor. A senior Ukrainian official claimed the strikes on bridges and other sensitive infrastructure were linked to President Vladimir Putin's order last month to eliminate constraints on Russia's air campaign, reported by the Financial Times.

Economic analyst Andriy Shevchishin stated on Facebook that roughly 500,000 commuters traverse from the left to the right bank daily. Residents in the left bank have endured some of the harshest power and heating outages throughout the war, with one district, Troyeshchyna, going without heating for over a week last winter in freezing temperatures.

Memories of last winter, the worst of the war, persist in residents' minds after Russia initiated what Ukrainian officials perceived as the first wave of an anticipated winter bombing campaign against power facilities supplying the capital. Russia has been launching hundreds of fast and relatively inexpensive jet-powered drones daily at Ukraine throughout the summer, against which Ukraine's defenses have struggled.

Russia's defense ministry confirmed via Telegram that its drones had struck a Kyiv bridge, a power station in the surrounding area, the southwestern port of Izmail, and a cargo vessel. All targets were alleged to be used for military purposes, according to the ministry.

Russian news agencies later cited the ministry as reporting additional strikes throughout the day on a data center in the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv and another vessel en route to Odesa. Internationally, Ukrainian drones have also targeted the Lukoil refinery in Volgograd and another oil facility in the Samara region, Ukraine's military reported.

Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries, one of the world's leading oil producers, have allegedly resulted in a 1% reduction in Russia's gross domestic product, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow is believed to be producing 120 to 140 ballistic missiles each month, with 600 already in stock.