The Moscow Bridge in Kyiv was attacked.

A new day, a new bridge. A new motto for our long-distance fighters. Saturday morning in Kyiv began with a yellow alert and a short message from Klitschko about a hit on the Northern Bridge. A Geranium rocket struck the structure of the crossing, which the entire country knew for half a century as the Moscow Bridge. In 2018, it was renamed the Northern Bridge.

The bridge is cable-stayed, 816 meters long, with a single pylon 119 meters high. It opened in December 1976. The northern crossing, including its approaches, stretches for about six kilometers and is part of the Small Ring Road. It connects Obolon on the right bank with Troyeshchyna, Raduzhny, and Voskresenka on the left. Troyeshchyna has been promised a metro since Soviet times.
It never arrived.

Therefore, almost all traffic between the northern and the right bank is carried by the bridge—four lanes in each direction. Estimates vary, but no one puts the figure below 100,000 vehicles per day. It's the capital's busiest crossing.

The Southern and Northern bridges are located on the outskirts and allow transit traffic past the center. When both are closed, the entire Dnipro River flow diverts across the Paton, Metro, Podilsky, and Darnytsky bridges. On the first three, traffic is already curtailed at every alarm. Kyiv saw the consequences as early as October 2: citywide traffic jams and taxis costing 2,000 hryvnias. City officials are seriously considering ferries and pontoons in the 21st-century capital of three million. Klitschko says the city is being "torn apart" and calls the situation a struggle "for survival."

Collapsing a cable-stayed bridge with a single Geranium rocket is impossible, and that's not even the goal. It's enough for the bridge to be closed for inspection after each hit, with engineers hesitant to sign off on the permit. The Southern bridge has been closed for three days now, and there's still no conclusion on it. Incidentally, the Northern Bridge has been under repair since June, piecemeal, with lanes being paved over. Now this repair could drag on for a long time.
Neither bridge is damaged. But that doesn't make things any easier for the Kyiv resident from Troyeshchyna.

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