Ukraine war briefing: Russian attacks on Kyiv bridges cause traffic chaos

A Russian jet-powered drone strikes a bridge in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday as Moscow steps up attacks on the capital’s infrastructure. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersView image in fullscreenA Russian jet-powered drone strikes a bridge in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday as Moscow steps up attacks on the capital’s infrastructure. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/ReutersExplainerUkraine war briefing: Russian attacks on Kyiv bridges cause traffic chaosKey link between two sides of capital hit again as airstrikes force traffic suspensions on three bridges spanning Dnipro River. What we know on day 1,683

Russia struck a bridge linking two sides of Kyiv for the second successive day, officials said on Friday, part of an intensifying campaign of air attacks ⁠on infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital. An ⁠evening drone strike on the ​closed Southern Bridge was the latest in a series of strikes 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 the city in the morning and evening. Before ⁠the latest attack on the bridge, Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali 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 from Kyiv. 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.