Intensified Russian strikes are tearing Kyiv apart, warns mayor

Intensified Russian drone and missile strikes are "tearing Kyiv apart", the mayor of Ukraine's capital has warned.

Vitaliy Klitschko said the city was now in a "very dramatic situation" as Moscow was battering its "critical infrastructure, logistics, housing" and other key facilities.

He was speaking after Kyiv's defence council held a crisis meeting, following new Russian strikes on a key bridge that caused traffic chaos. The city's data centres have also been recently hit, resulting in internet outages.

President Vladimir Putin earlier said Russia was acting in response to Ukraine's strikes on Russian energy facilities, despite the fact that it was Moscow that had first launched such attacks.

"We're talking about survival," Klitschko said at Friday's defence council meeting with Kyiv's top military, security, emergencies and police officials.

Russia's aim was to "sow panic", he said, stressing that the capital would "prevail - but only through the joint efforts of those who love it and care for it".

The mayor was speaking just hours after Kyiv's key Pivdennyi (Southern) bridge was hit in an overnight Russian drone attack. On Friday evening it was struck again - the fourth time in two days.

The bridge is one of the main transport arteries across the Dnipro River dividing western and eastern parts of Kyiv.

All metro and automobile traffic is now suspended across the bridge, causing major delays across the city. Restrictions are also in place on Kyiv's two other key bridges.

Kyiv's current population is estimated to be about three million, and many residents rely heavily on the city's metro network.

One person was killed in the capital when a multi-storey residential building was hit overnight, Ukraine's state emergencies service DSNS said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin had decided in early September that "there are no rules now" when attacking Ukraine.

In a published excerpt from his interview to the Financial Times, Zelensky said: "The Russians have failed to occupy us. So now they are carrying out massive attacks and mass killings.

"They want to destroy our bridges... our data centres, the internet, mobile networks, hospitals, kindergartens, schools, universities - everything. They want people to flee their cities."

Putin insisted that Russia's attacks on Ukrainian economic targets were a direct response to Ukraine's strikes on Russia's oil refineries and its ships in the Black Sea.

"Now from every direction we're receiving calls 'let's stop'. But they started it," Putin said after his Thursday's wide-ranging speech at the Valdai foreign policy forum.

Putin admitted Kyiv had "got some results" from its refinery attacks and Russia had lost about 1% of its GDP. Ukraine maintains it began attacking Russian oil infrastructure because it helps the Kremlin finance the war.

Russia has targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, ramping up attacks every winter since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.

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