Volodymyr Zelensky warned Ursula von der Leyen that Russia could sustain attacks on the Dnipro bridges to isolate eastern Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian official said Moscow plans to disrupt electricity transfers from west to east. Eight bridges connect Kyiv's left and right banks.
The Warning
Zelensky raised the threat during a recent call with von der Leyen, according to people briefed on the conversation who spoke to the Financial Times. He said the two had agreed that the EU would use a special emergency mechanism to provide rapid funding for Ukraine’s most urgent needs.
The danger is not limited to road traffic. Moscow is trying to turn attacks on infrastructure into a way of separating the country’s regions from one another.
The Crossings
North of the capital, the nearest Dnipro crossing is the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, 16 kilometres from the Northern Bridge. To the south, the next crossing is at the Kaniv Hydroelectric Power Plant, roughly 130 kilometres from the Southern Bridge.
That geography matters if bridges become impassable. Military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady said sustained strikes would squeeze the movement of ammunition, fuel and reinforcements from west to east onto fewer crossings. Heavy equipment and large ammunition shipments generally travel by rail. So damage to railway bridges would make it harder to move reserves quickly to threatened parts of the front.
A bridge need not be destroyed to delay a train, divert a convoy or strain an alternative route.
What It Would Take
Carnegie senior fellow Michael Kofman said Russian attacks on bridges had previously been episodic. Disrupting traffic across the Dnipro would require coordinated, systematic strikes. Not a handful of hits. Even then, he said, Ukraine could erect pontoon bridges. Gady likewise assessed that Russia was unlikely to cut off eastern Ukraine completely.
The campaign remains harmful. Zelensky’s warning to the EU concerns a sustained assault on the transport and power links that keep eastern Ukraine supplied.