Image caption, All metro and automobile traffic is now suspended across Kyiv's Pivdennyi bridge 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.

Is the war entering a new phase? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on allies to tighten sanctions against Russia after a wave of strikes triggered gridlock across Kyiv. Traffic chaos gripped the Ukrainian capital on Friday after Russian drone attacks overnight closed key bridges. Zelenskyy called for allies to act to prevent Moscow from sourcing components for its arsenal as Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine face attacks around the clock. The Metro Bridge was closed in the direction of Kyiv's right bank, the city administration said.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia suffered its highest losses of 2026 in September, when 46,230 of its soldiers were killed or wounded, according to the Ukrainian military . The new record comes after Russian casualties of about 40,000 a month since June, and is close to the goal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy set in January of 50,000 Russian casualties a month. Russia reportedly lost 2,090 troops on September 28 - its highest 24-hour casualty rate of the war. Al Jazeera cannot verify casualty claims from either side.

Vladimir Putin has said Russia will use all weapons at his disposal if it considers it has come under direct attack in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. Addressing the Valdai foreign policy forum, Putin insisted Russia was not threatening anyone and merely responding to statements by Western leaders that Moscow was preparing for war in 2029 or 2030. Throughout this week, Russia has accused Nato of preparing to blockade its territory, which borders Lithuania and Poland, warning that it would even be prepared to use nuclear weapons if the West tried to cut off Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia. Nato has sought to calm the situation, stressing it is a defensive alliance and urging Moscow to stop its nuclear threats. Western allies have faced a surge in so-called hybrid warfare incidents blamed on Russia, particularly in Poland and the Baltics in recent months.

Western militaries are undermining Ukraine's defence, experts say Share Western militaries are undermining Ukraine's defence, experts say on social media Mundane regulatory problems in Kyiv and unimaginative institutional thinking in Europe's militaries are holding up joint weapons production. And that is undermining Ukraine's battlefield performance and leaving Europe's armed forces unprepared for modern warfare. Those are the conclusions of a new report from the Centre for Statecraft and National Security (CSNS) at King's College London, and experts who spoke to Al Jazeera. Kyiv receives weapons, Western partners receive know-how. That formula has led to at least 180 business-to-business partnerships between Ukrainian and foreign partners, but 22 percent of them are stalled, according to the report, Beyond Aid: Making Ukraine Defence Cooperation Work.

Two Russian drones have hit one of Kyiv's main bridges, bringing public transport in the Ukrainian capital to a halt and signalling a new stage in Moscow's attacks. The Pivdennyi or Southern bridge came under fire as a metro train was travelling across. Passengers described how dust from a blast wave entered their carriage through the ventilation system. The Pivdennyi bridge is one of the main arteries across the Dnipro river dividing western and eastern Kyiv. Kyiv's bridges had not been hit before Thursday's strikes - and despite a dramatic explosion close to a main support section, city authorities said preliminary checks did not find any critical damage to the structure.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russian drone hits school in Ukraine's Kyiv as Moscow presses air assault Share Russian drone hits school in Ukraine's Kyiv as Moscow presses air assault on social media A Russian drone has struck a school in Kyiv, officials said, as the Ukrainian capital endured another day of bombardment. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said children and staff were hiding in shelters when the drone hit and there were no immediate reports of casualties during the attack on Thursday. In a statement on Thursday, Ukraine's nuclear safety watchdog said a Russian drone hit the grounds of a nuclear research facility in Kyiv on Wednesday, causing a fire but leaving the facility's test reactor undamaged. "The fire that resulted from the attack was quickly extinguished. There were no injuries," the regulator said in a statement, adding that the reactor was not damaged and had been shut down since 2022.

To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. When Vladimir Putin arrived to address Russia's parliament on Wednesday, a warm welcome was guaranteed. The Special Election Operation, as one Russian newspaper dubbed last month's legislative vote, has produced a State Duma even more pro-Putin than anything before it. The ruling party, United Russia, now has more MPs than ever. It allows the Kremlin to claim it has been handed a huge mandate from the Russian people.

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has accused Russia of "sabotage" following an August arson attack on a defence company, Milrem Robotics, a claim the Kremlin rejected. "We can conclude with certainty that the arson attack in Tallinn was an act of sabotage ordered by the special services of the Russian Federation," Tsahkna wrote on X on Tuesday. "This act of sabotage is part of Russia's broader campaign across Europe, aimed at intimidating us and weakening our support for Ukraine," he wrote. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the allegation. "Such statements are baseless, ill-considered, have absolutely no relation to reality, and lack any form of reasoning. Consequently, we cannot and will not take such statements seriously," he told reporters.

A fire at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland was a deliberate act of sabotage, a government minister has said. Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said the fire in the Masovian Voivodeship province was deliberately designed to disable the station... disrupting internet access for various institutions, including the Ukrainian army. He told Polish public broadcaster TVP Info an investigation was ongoing but many indications suggest the attack fits into a new Russian doctrine of attack. The Kremlin has not commented. Meanwhile, Denmark's intelligence service issued a new threat assessment saying it expects Russia to escalate hybrid warfare in the coming months.