Dramatic footage has captured a Russian drone slamming into Kyiv’s Northern Bridge in a massive fireball as cars travelled across it.
The video shows cars moving along Kyiv’s Pivnichnyi, or Northern Bridge, on Sunday morning local time before a drone crashes directly into the roadway.
A bright explosion erupts on impact, followed by a thick cloud of black smoke rising above the Dnipro River.
The bridges remain standing, but experts have warned repeated strikes could weaken the structures and force prolonged closures, even if Russian drones are unlikely to completely destroy them.
Ukrainian authorities are considering temporary pontoon bridges, ferry services and even a tunnel beneath the Dnipro to maintain connections between the two halves of the
capital.
The attacks are part of a wider escalation, with Russia warning it would intensify strikes across Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 135 drones overnight, including 52 jet-powered drones, claiming 125 were shot down.
The latest strikes came as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made a surprise visit to Kyiv, where he met President Volodymyr Zelensky and reaffirmed Berlin’s support for Ukraine.
Air raid sirens sounded while the two leaders visited a building damaged in an earlier Russian drone attack that killed two people.
Mr Zelensky later announced a new German aid package worth more than €1.3 billion, including weapons and assistance for Ukraine’s energy sector ahead of winter.
But the growing pressure is not confined to Ukraine.
A leaked document reported by The Times suggests Russia is taking increasingly drastic steps to force young men into military service, with potential conscripts facing restrictions on buying and selling property, taking out mortgages and registering as business owners unless they can prove their military status.
The measures reportedly apply to Russian men aged 18 to 30 who are eligible for conscription.
The development comes amid mounting Russian casualties and concerns over the Kremlin’s ability to sustain its war effort.
Russian officials have announced plans to conscript 120,000 soldiers this autumn, while analysts cited by The Times believe the government may be seeking to expand recruitment beyond the poorer and more rural sections of society that have disproportionately supplied troops.
At the same time, Russia’s war in Ukraine is fuelling growing concern across NATO’s eastern flank.
A report from The Atlantic in Lithuania described military exercises simulating a Russian invasion of the Baltic States, where civilian volunteers train to fight Russian forces alongside their regular militaries.The Baltic nations – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – have spent years preparing for the possibility of Russian aggression, with defensive barriers, antitank obstacles, sensors, cyberwarfare capabilities and volunteer militias being developed along their borders.The central fear is that Russia could attempt a
rapid incursion designed to seize territory before NATO
can fully respond.
For Lithuania and its neighbours, the war in Ukraine has made that threat feel increasingly immediate.
And as Russian drones continue smashing into critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the conflict is showing few signs of easing.