Russia's latest campaign against Kyiv is aimed at the bridges that stitch the capital together across the Dnipro River. Jet-powered drones have struck the Northern (Pivnichnyi) Bridge, the Southern Bridge, the Darnytskyi Bridge, the Metro Bridge and a separate railway crossing, according to Ukrainian military analyst Denys Davydov, who mapped the attacks in a video published on October 4. Independent reporting confirms the pattern: the Northern Bridge was hit on Saturday, a day after the Southern Bridge — which carries both road traffic and a metro line — was struck five times in less than 24 hours.
Damage is real, but destruction is another matter
The strikes are precise enough to hit the cables and rods that hold a bridge over its arch, and to tear into a pedestrian walkway while civilians were walking several kilometres across a closed span to get from one side of the city to the other. Yet the assessment emerging from Kyiv is that nuisance damage and structural destruction are very different things. In footage cited by Davydov, a local man describes the harm as minor: cables and concrete were damaged, but the bridge structure itself is, in his words, "very, very robust."
Davydov argues that Russia cannot actually bring these bridges down with the weapons it is now using. Ballistic missiles, of which he says Moscow has prepared more than 1,000 for the coming months, are not precise enough to hit a bridge reliably — and even a hit would not significantly damage such massive structures. Only heavy aviation glide bombs could truly destroy them, he says, and Russian aircraft cannot operate over Kyiv because Ukraine's air defences are too advanced. What the drones can do is close crossings again and again: each attack forces a shutdown for damage assessment, queues build up on both banks, and deliveries across the city become slow and unpredictable. The bridges do not have to fall to hurt logistics; they only have to keep stopping.
Why the drones are hitting so precisely
According to Serhii "Flash", a prominent Ukrainian drone expert and adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cited in the video, one to three relay devices may be operating inside Kyiv, giving Russian operators a temporary communications link to fine-tune a drone's flight path over the city. Flash says the devices are carried by Russian agents on the ground, are difficult to detect, and that while one is active it is impossible to fully shield the capital with electronic warfare. Some of the jet Shaheds — the Geran-4 and Geran-5 types now used in the attacks — are therefore not flying a purely pre-programmed route; their course can be corrected on final approach.
That helps explain why low-flying, guided jet drones have become Moscow's bridge weapon of choice. Davydov says Russia wants to produce five to six times more of them next year, while Ukraine urgently needs dedicated interceptors fast enough to catch them.
The logistics prize Moscow is chasing
The reason bridges matter so much is geography. Kyiv's crossings are crucial not only for the city — split between a governmental right bank and a residential left bank — but for the country: the main highway connecting eastern and western Ukraine runs through the capital, and supplies move either along that highway or by railway through Kyiv. The next alternative crossings, via Kaniv or Cherkasy, are far away, would make supply runs much longer and slower, and could themselves be targeted. Pontoon bridges across the Dnipro have been floated as an emergency answer, though how effective they would be is unclear.
Russia's Defence Ministry claims the Northern Bridge is used to transfer troops and supply military cargo — the stated justification for the strikes. Davydov's conclusion is blunter: there is no "dead end" for Ukrainian supplies, because Ukraine will find a way through, but the bridge campaign attacks one of the country's most vulnerable points and could, over time, affect the front line. For now, the campaign looks less like a knockout blow against Ukrainian logistics than a grinding war of closures, jams and fear — waged one jet drone at a time against bridges built to survive far worse.
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