Kyiv has spent another day and night under a sky full of drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched 277 attack drones of various types since the previous evening - 155 of them jet-powered. Over the past 24 hours the capital was under an air raid alert for around 18 hours in total. That's three quarters of the day.

According to Ukrainian sources, warehouses, communications facilities and other infrastructure were hit. One strike landed near the "Ukraine" Palace in the city centre, where a large fire broke out. On the morning of 28 September a drone hit a petrol station in the Obolon district, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed the incident. Attacks were also reported in the Odesa and Kirovohrad regions, in Balakliia and Kharkiv. The exact toll of damage and any casualties is still being established.

Moscow, meanwhile, tells the same night in its own vocabulary. The Russian Defence Ministry said it had targeted Ukraine's communications and logistics infrastructure, listing among its targets the "Kosmonova" data centre in Kyiv, which Moscow says supported mobile internet and the Starlink systems used by the Ukrainian army. Also on the list: a bridge near Maiaky in the Odesa region, a port facility in Vylkove and a "Nova Poshta" logistics centre.

The bridge that "fell" on Telegram

Alongside the drones, rumours were flying too. On social media and Telegram channels, a claim spread that the Southern Bridge - a large road and rail bridge over the Dnipro that also carries part of the metro - had been hit and brought down. There is no official confirmation. Back on 25 September the city had announced planned works on the bridge and temporary traffic restrictions for 26 September. A column of smoke on the horizon was enough for someone to write a headline. The Balkans learned in the nineties that in war the first casualty is the truth - and today it dies even faster, with a single forward.

The figure that should worry people more than any rumour is 155. More than half the drones were jet-powered, faster and harder to shoot down - which puts extra strain on the air defences around Kyiv. The war is changing speed, and the defence has to run to keep up.

And it isn't as far away as it looks from Skopje. Romania's Defence Ministry said that on the night of 26-27 September a radar picked up an aerial target near Chilia Veche, close to the state border on the Danube, which flew almost parallel to the Chilia branch for several minutes before the signal was lost near Pardina. That's NATO and EU territory. How many more "lost signals" like this will it take before someone in Brussels stops counting them as incidents?