Russia Hits Second Kyiv Bridge, Renews Warning for Diplomats to Leave

Russia struck a second major bridge over the Dnipro River in Kyiv on Saturday morning, damaging the roadway and overhead trolleybus wires on the Northern Bridge and injuring two people, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

"Traffic on the bridge from the left to the right bank is currently blocked," Klitschko wrote on Telegram, the BBC and Ukrinform reported. One of the injured was treated at the scene and the other was hospitalized, he said later, according to RBC-Ukraine. By late morning, the Kyiv City State Administration said three lanes were open toward the right bank and one toward the left bank while repairs continued, Interfax-Ukraine and UNN reported.

The attack followed repeated drone strikes this week on the Southern Bridge, the city's other main river crossing. Neither bridge had been hit before Thursday, the BBC reported. Several bus and trolleybus routes were delayed after the Northern Bridge closed, the city transit operator Kyivpastrans said, according to Ukrinform and the Kyiv Post.

Russia's Defense Ministry said its drones hit the two bridges because they were being used to move Ukrainian troops and military cargo, the BBC and the Russian state news agency TASS reported.

After a meeting of the city's defense council Friday, Klitschko said Kyiv was in "a very dramatic situation," the BBC and the Kyiv Post reported. "We can no longer pretend that we can live as we would in peacetime," he said, according to the Kyiv Post.

Hours after the strike, Russia's Foreign Ministry renewed its call for foreign nationals, including diplomatic staff, to stay out of Ukraine. In a statement posted on its website, the ministry said "some individuals are knowingly placing themselves in mortal danger" by remaining in Kyiv and that Russian forces "will continue to carry out large-scale retaliatory strikes."

"Responsibility for any possible adverse consequences lies entirely with those who choose to disregard this warning," the statement said. Moscow issued a similar warning in May.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said no embassy has told it of plans to leave the capital. "If any diplomatic missions are planning to relocate, they inform us; that is the established procedure," spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told journalists Friday, the Kyiv Independent reported. He said no such notice had been received as of Friday evening, according to the Kyiv Independent and the Kyiv Post.

Tykhyi was responding to a report in The Guardian, which cited an unnamed senior diplomat as saying embassies had contingency plans to move staff to Lviv or eastern Poland if Russia began deliberately targeting diplomatic missions.

At the Valdai forum in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the idea of a mutual halt to long-range strikes. "We are told: 'Let them stop striking your refineries, and you will stop striking their ships.' It is simply ridiculous," he said, Al Jazeera reported. He said Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries had cost Russia 1 percent of its gross domestic product, according to Al Jazeera and the independent Russian outlet Meduza.

Also Saturday, a Russian attack on a Liberian-flagged cargo ship at a port in the Odesa region killed a crew member and injured three others, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said. Thirteen crew members were evacuated, the authority said.