--- title: "Russia Hits Second Bridge in Kyiv as Zelensky Says Putin ‘Isn’t Afraid of Europeans’" description: "Two people were hurt in Saturday’s strike, which officials said is cutting the capital in two, as Ukraine’s president spoke at a bombed school" author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-03T14:02:50.555Z modified: 2026-10-03T17:58:50Z url: https://rews.cc/a/zelensky-says-putin-will-intensify-attacks-on-civilians-as-u-8a4a64 language: en tags: ["ukraine", "war", "infrastructure", "russia", "trump", "world", "europe"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Russia Hits Second Bridge in Kyiv as Zelensky Says Putin ‘Isn’t Afraid of Europeans’ *Two people were hurt in Saturday’s strike, which officials said is cutting the capital in two, as Ukraine’s president spoke at a bombed school* By rews desk · October 3, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/zelensky-says-putin-will-intensify-attacks-on-civilians-as-u-8a4a64 ## In brief - A Russian strike injured two people on Kyiv’s Northern Bridge on Saturday, a day after the Southern Bridge was hit five times in 24 hours - Officials said the strikes are effectively cutting the capital, split by the Dnipro, in two; the Southern Bridge remains closed - At least five people were killed in long-range strikes traded by the two sides, Al Jazeera reported; Ukraine said it downed 131 of 157 drones - At a drone-bombed school, Zelensky told El Pais the attacks aim to drive residents out of Kyiv and paralyze the city - He said China and India help Russia evade sanctions, and that ballistic missiles now hit their targets more than 90 percent of the time A Russian strike hit Kyiv’s Northern Bridge on Saturday, the second attack in two days on a bridge carrying the Ukrainian capital across the Dnipro River, as President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Vladimir V. Putin would only escalate his bombardment of civilians as the American midterm elections approach. Two people were injured in Saturday’s strike, which damaged the roadway and the power supply feeding a trolleybus line, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko of Kyiv said, and some traffic across the river was suspended. A day earlier, the Southern Bridge, which carries road vehicles and the subway, was hit five times in less than 24 hours; it remains closed. Ukrainian officials said the attacks were effectively cutting the capital in two. The right bank of the Dnipro holds most of the city’s business centers, offices and government institutions, while the left bank is mostly residential and home to at least 30 percent of the capital’s residents. “The capital is in a very dire situation,” Mr. Klitschko said on Saturday. “And it is no longer possible to pretend that we can live as we did in peacetime.” Russia, he said, was “laying waste to Kyiv. Infrastructure, critical infrastructure, logistics, housing, social facilities.” He called on the city to “unite, as we did in February 2022.” Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 157 attack and decoy drones overnight and early Saturday, and that air defenses shot down or neutralized 131 of them. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it carried out the bridge strike, claiming the crossing was used to move Ukrainian troops and military supplies. Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv region military administration, said a warehouse and production site were also hit, injuring four people. In the Odesa region, a Russian attack on a Liberian-flagged ship killed one person and injured three, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said on Telegram, with 12 crew members evacuated. At least five people were killed in the day’s exchange of long-range strikes between the two sides, Al Jazeera reported. Russia accelerated its campaign on Kyiv in late August, exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of interceptors against faster, [jet-powered drones](https://rews.cc/a/russia-s-600-kilometer-an-hour-drones-are-outrunning-ukraine-a216e6), and the city is now bombed day and night. Mr. Zelensky’s answer has been to show up where the bombs fall. On Thursday he toured a school struck by a drone that morning and sat down there for an interview with the Spanish newspaper *El País*. Classes had already begun when the drone hit; students were hustled to a bunker, and no one was hurt. Sirens sounded again minutes before the president arrived, smoke rose nearby and one of his guards kept scanning the sky through binoculars, the paper’s correspondent reported. Valentin, a 14-year-old student, was glad he had overslept. “That floor is the library, the one below is the computer lab,” he said, pointing to the blackened upper floors. “They want Ukrainians -- especially those in the capital -- to leave,” Mr. Zelensky said in the interview. “Remember that in 2022, that was their goal: to get people to leave the capital to prove that, if you don’t have the capital, you don’t have a country,” he added. “Our country is more than just the capital.” Standing in the schoolyard about 20 meters from the damaged facade, he said the school was far from any front. “These are not military targets, nor are they on the front lines,” he said. “They are attacking to paralyze the city.” The targets, he said, run from food and hospital logistics to agriculture to educational institutions, all of it aimed at “simply destroying people’s ability to live.” Mr. Putin, he predicted, will escalate further as Nov. 3 nears, when the House and a third of the Senate stand for election in a vote that will measure support for President Trump. “Putin’s tactic is to escalate the conflict as much as possible, and he will do so,” he said. Russia, he said, “is not afraid of Europeans, nor is it affected by sanctions,” and aims its messages at Washington. He said he had told Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who lead Mr. Trump’s negotiating team and visited Kyiv on Sept. 6, to expect “massive attacks that would directly affect the civilian population” after the vote. Even so, he said, he remains confident that Mr. Trump can help end the invasion, despite the clashes the two men have had. He named those he now counts as Mr. Putin’s helpers: China and India, which he said “are really helpful in allowing him to circumvent sanctions” and which also supply military equipment, and Iran, whose contribution he described as “military expertise with drones.” Ukraine, he said, has built enough domestic capacity to produce defensive drones and most of what it needs; the glaring gap is ballistic missiles, which this year’s statistics show hit their targets more than 90 percent of the time. Kyiv will keep asking partners for more money to close the gap, he said, because the war of early 2022 barely resembles the war now. But however much arrives, he said, “it won’t be enough.” ## Sources - [Zelenskiy to EL PAÍS: ‘Putin isn’t afraid of Europeans’](https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-10-02/volodymyr-zelenskiy-to-el-pais-on-the-new-russian-offensive-against-kyiv-putin-isnt-afraid-of-europeans.html) — english.elpais.com - [Russia strikes another major bridge in Kyiv as attacks on the capital escalate](https://cnn.com/2026/10/03/europe/russia-strikes-northern-southern-bridges-kyiv-attacks-intl) — cnn.com - [Five killed as Kyiv and Moscow trade strikes, Russia hits second bridge](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/3/five-killed-as-kyiv-and-moscow-trade-strikes-russia-hits-second-bridge) — aljazeera.com