KYIV — The Northern Bridge was formally reclassified on Sunday as a scheduled demolition site and placed under a public works timetable that requires its complete removal by Friday, following a second Russian drone strike on the structure in a single weekend.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city had grown tired of repairing the bridge after each attack and would now simply let the strikes continue until nothing remained. «We have calculated that four more strikes will bring the span down to the waterline,» he said. «We have asked our partners in Moscow to keep to the schedule. They have never missed a deadline yet.»
Under the new arrangement, a municipal inspector will stand at each end of the bridge with a clipboard and a whistle, logging each incoming drone as a completed demolition charge. Traffic will continue in both directions until the roadway is physically gone, at which point the inspector will blow the whistle and declare the project finished ahead of time.
The Southern Bridge, struck four times this week, has been placed on a waiting list for the same treatment. A city engineer explained that the queue is organised by the number of strikes already received, and that the Southern Bridge is «very close to the front.»
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, visiting Kyiv on the day of the strike, offered to send a team of German bridge inspectors to certify the demolition. «If Russia will not stop, we will at least make sure the paperwork is in order,» he said, before being handed a whistle of his own.