Kyiv woke to gridlock and fresh damage after Russian strikes hit critical infrastructure, prompting the city’s mayor to warn that attacks are “tearing Kyiv apart” and forcing the capital to brace for life on a war footing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of shredding the rules of armed conflict by authorizing large-scale assaults on civilian areas — a charge the Kremlin has rejected.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the fighting has largely centred on ground combat in the east, leaving Kyiv comparatively shielded from the frontline’s worst destruction.
That calculus, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, no longer holds.
“The capital is in a very dramatic situation,” he posted 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,” he added.
Klitschko’s warning came as officials closed one of the capital’s main bridges and tightened access on another following another wave of deadly strikes involving fast-moving, jet-powered drones.
A bridge connecting the east and west of Kyiv was struck several times yesterday and today
Across major roads, commuters found themselves trapped in long lines of motionless cars and buses, while others abandoned vehicles to continue on foot or search for alternate crossings.
“I’ve been travelling for three hours… to get to work”, said Tetiana Osypenko, a 49-year-old resident whose bus was stuck in a traffic jam.
“There’s just no way to get there. Nothing. It’s impossible to cross the bridges today,” she said.
Osypenko said earlier interruptions to subway service during air raids had already pushed her to spend the night in a metro station near the Southern Bridge.
The traffic snarl intensified after the Southern Bridge — one of eight bridges spanning the Dnipro river and linking Kyiv’s east and west — was fully shut to vehicles in both directions.
Further north, the Paton Bridge was operating in only one direction, although there were no reports it had been hit.
The latest Russian attacks killed one person and wounded at least two other people when a 25-storey residential building was hit in southeast Kyiv
In a post on X, Mr Zelensky said the Russian leader had last month declared there were “no rules now,” citing unnamed intelligence and people around Mr Putin.
“The Russians couldn’t occupy us. So now they are doing massive attacks and massive killings,” Mr Zelensky said.
The Kremlin did not immediately issue a public reply to the allegation.
Daily disruption
Aerial attacks have become more frequent over recent months, keeping Kyiv in near-permanent readiness and steadily eroding the routines of daily life.
Air raid sirens warning of threats overhead now sound almost continuously, sending the city’s estimated three million residents repeatedly to shelters.
Debris from a Russian drone strike on a apartment block in Kyiv
Strikes on trains and petrol stations have repeatedly disrupted rail and road links, while attacks on energy infrastructure have raised the risk of interruptions to electricity and heating.
‘Political will’
Mr Zelensky has urged tougher sanctions aimed at stopping Russia from producing its new jet-powered drones, which he says are quicker and more difficult to intercept.
Russia’s ability to build the weapons was “critically dependent” on foreign-made components, he wrote on social media.
“Every Russian drone can actually be stopped right at the production line. What is needed is the political will of these countries,” he added.
Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to Ukraine’s Western partners for additional military assistance, especially US-made Patriot missile interceptors.
Yesterday Mr Zelensky said Ukraine had used its FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, but did not say where it was used or what it targeted.
He also said Ukraine was testing five domestically produced interceptors against drones.
South Korea threatens ‘measures’ against Ukraine in POW row
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has warned of unspecified measures against Ukraine unless Kyiv acknowledged what Seoul says was a confidentiality agreement covering the transfer of two captured North Korean soldiers and issued an apology.
Mr Lee also voiced “grave regret” over what he described as Ukrainian comments about an imminent military clash between North and South Korea, saying the remarks amounted to encouraging war on the Korean peninsula.
“If the refusal to acknowledge the facts and issue a public apology continues, we will take additional measures,” Mr Lee said in a post on social media
Relations between Seoul and Kyiv have been strained since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the United Nations General Assembly last month that Ukraine had transferred two North Korean prisoners of war captured while fighting for Russia to South Korea.
Seoul later accused Kyiv of violating an agreement to keep the transfer confidential to protect the soldiers, while Ukrainian officials said no such agreement existed.
Kyiv’s embassy in Seoul did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lee’s remarks.
‘Neither side benefits from dispute’
Ukrainian media reported that Kyiv was trying to repair ties with South Korea, citing Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
“I would not like to call this an incident. Let’s say, it’s a diplomatic misunderstanding,” Sybiha told journalists at an event, according to a report yesterday on news website nv.ua and other media.
A senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official told reporters the two countries’ foreign ministers had been discussing how Kyiv could address Seoul’s concerns — including the possibility of an apology — according to South Korean media.
Foreign Minister Cho Hyun and Mr Sybiha have been in direct contact, the reports said, weighing what kind of response Seoul is seeking and what Ukraine can accept, while factoring in wartime conditions and the need to avoid either side losing face.
The dispute lands at a politically delicate moment for Mr Lee’s administration, which has been seeking to ease tensions with North Korea while also dealing with fallout from a recent landmine incident in the Demilitarised Zone separating the two Koreas.
