Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced at around five in the morning on 2 October that the Southern Bridge had been hit again and that emergency services had been sent to the scene. It was a continuation of strikes on the same structure that began a day earlier, on 1 October.

On the first day, two drones struck the area near the bridge's load-bearing section. Traffic was temporarily halted, experts inspected the structure and found no critical damage that would endanger the whole bridge, so some traffic was later restored. Klitschko then listed what had been damaged: the bridge girder, the safety railing, the roadway and the concrete barrier separating the metro infrastructure. The next day the bridge was in the crosshairs again.

Now the Southern Bridge is closed in both directions, and metro trains no longer run across it. Metro workers began cutting power to the line, and trains came to a halt on both sides of the Dnipro. Bus routes 22 and 91 have been diverted via the Darnytskyi railway bridge, and because of the night-time attacks there are restrictions on other river crossings in Kyiv as well.

Why this bridge in particular? Besides road traffic, it carries the green line of the Kyiv metro, the one that connects the city's two banks. A strike on the Southern Bridge isn't a strike on a slab of concrete, but on an artery of the city's transport.

The most frightening detail concerns the train. One of the strikes landed while a metro train was crossing the bridge. The blast wave threw up dust that got into the carriages through the ventilation system. According to Kyiv authorities, neither the passengers nor the driver were injured, and the train has no damage to its windows or structure. It has been taken to the depot for further inspection. This time they were lucky. How many times can luck serve as a safety plan?

Russian sources and military Telegram channels claim the attacks used drones with a special warhead designed for metal structures, and some of them say the targets were the bridge's girder and supporting pier. Official Ukrainian information confirms hits in the area of the load-bearing parts and damage to the girder, but not the claims about the type of warhead.

The Balkans know this logic by heart. A bridge is always high on the list, because when it falls it isn't just steel coming down, but the link between two halves of a city. The bridges of Novi Sad in 1999 and the Old Bridge in Mostar in 1993 are still remembered today. In Kyiv, for now, the bridge is still standing. But the metro no longer crosses it.