The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement Oct. 3 which “once again warns foreign nationals, including diplomatic missions’ personnel, against staying in Ukraine or traveling to the country. Full responsibility for any possible adverse consequences lies with those who ignore this warning,” the statement emphasized. “The Russian Armed Forces will continue to launch massive retaliatory strikes.”
Russia first warned diplomats to evacuate Kiev on May 6, 2026, because acting president Volodymyr Zelensky had threatened to launch strikes against Moscow during the May 9 Victory Day commemorations. Russia urged diplomatic missions to remove their staff ahead of potential retaliatory strikes.
Kiev is under stepped-up Russian retaliatory strikes in response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s oil refineries and its ships in the Black Sea, as well as such actions as the massive Sept. 20 drone attack on Moscow and other locations during the Russian parliamentary election. The attacks on Kiev come within an overall Russian drive to cripple the logistics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Russians are using new weapons and choosing targets not previously hit, like the bridges across the Dnieper River that connect right-bank and left-bank Kiev.
The past three days have seen the debut of Russian Geran drones outfitted with cable-cutting equipment. These have been used in strikes against power transmission towers and suspension bridges. On Oct. 2, one of Kiev’s three main bridges, the South Bridge, was severely damaged by a drone strike which severed a number of the bridge’s suspension cables. Car and metro traffic over the bridge has been stopped, with only pedestrians able to use it. Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said the city was now in a “very dramatic situation…. We’re talking about survival,” Klitschko told an Oct. 2 defense council meeting with Kiev’s top military, security, emergency, and police officials, BBC reported in an article headlined “Intensified Russian strikes are tearing Kyiv apart, warns mayor.” This morning Klitschko reported a strike on the North Bridge (formerly Moscow Bridge) in the city, as well. Car and trolley traffic has been suspended in one direction across that bridge.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Heorhy Tykhy today denied a report in the British Guardian that Western countries’ embassies in Kiev were preparing contingency plans to evacuate to Lviv in western Ukraine, or even to Poland.
