A Russian strike hit Kyiv's Northern Bridge (Pivnichnyi Bridge) early Saturday morning, damaging the road surface and overhead trolleybus cables and suspending traffic across the crossing from the east to the west bank, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. No casualties were reported, Klitschko said, but the strike caused tailbacks for a third straight day as Russia continued its campaign against the Ukrainian capital's Dnipro River crossings.
What happened on Saturday?
The attack followed an air-raid alert declared in Kyiv over the threat of attack drones, according to the Associated Press. Klitschko reported the hit on the bridge shortly afterward, saying emergency services were heading to the scene and that traffic from the left bank to the right bank was blocked.
Russia's Defense Ministry on Saturday confirmed it was behind the attack, claiming the bridge is used to "facilitate troop movements and the logistics of military cargo deliveries" for Ukraine's armed forces, the AP reported. The mayor said the strike damaged the bridge's road surface and trolleybus cables, forcing traffic to be suspended.
The Northern Bridge strike came a day after Russian assaults forced the full or partial closure of three of Kyiv's six road bridges over the Dnipro River, the AP reported. In the two days before Saturday, the Southern Bridge was struck several times by Russian drones, forcing the temporary suspension of traffic across it and two other crossings, Reuters reported. Videos circulating on social media appeared to show the moment of impact as vehicles crossed, including footage purportedly recorded by a driver's dashcam, according to the AP.
Why are Kyiv's bridges being targeted?
The crossings over the Dnipro — the river that splits Kyiv between its eastern and western halves — are among the most consequential civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. More than a third of the capital's roughly 3 million residents lived on the east, or "left," bank before Russia's 2022 invasion, but the vast majority work on the western, or "right," bank, where most government institutions and companies are located, Reuters reported.
Russia has in recent weeks widened its target set in the capital. Previously, strikes hit apartment blocks, supermarket warehouses, gas stations and data centers, the AP reported — part of an escalation Ukrainians see as the first salvo of an expected winter campaign against energy and logistics infrastructure supplying the capital, as residents remember last winter as the worst of the war.
Moscow has previously denied systematically targeting civilians as part of its bombing campaigns. The AP noted there are no concrete signs of a possible peace settlement, with fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line virtually deadlocked in recent months.
What else happened overnight?
Overnight, Ukraine's air force said Moscow launched Banderol cruise missiles — low-cost, jet-powered loitering munitions Russia uses to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses — at the Odesa region, which shares a long border with Moldova, the AP reported. Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on X that five "Russian air attack weapons, including Banderol missiles and drones," had violated Moldova's airspace and exploded on Moldovan soil.
"I condemn Russia's attack on Ukraine this morning. Its war is dangerously reaching Moldova," Sandu wrote. "Moscow is putting lives at risk across Europe and must be stopped."
Meanwhile, in Russia's Kaluga region west of Moscow, regional governor Vladislav Shapsha said people were injured after Ukrainian drones overnight struck the city of Kaluga, damaging apartment buildings. Shapsha did not give casualty figures but said 13 drones were shot down over the region during the night, according to the AP. The report also noted the aerial war has intensified on both sides: Kyiv has been striking Russia's oil industry and businesses — including oil facilities in the Samara and Volgograd regions over the past 24 hours, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — while Moscow has menaced Ukrainian cities with hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones.
Related: our [October 2 report on the Southern Bridge strikes and Kyiv's bridge closures](/articles/2026-10-02-0415-kyiv-southern-bridge-strikes) and [October 3 report on Ukraine's intercepted Russian winter campaign plan](/articles/2026-10-03-0430-ukraine-intercepted-russian-winter-plan).
