Russia carried out drone attacks Thursday against critical bridge infrastructure in Ukraine’s Odessa region, striking a crossing near the village of Mayaki in what appears to be an effort to halt the flow of NATO supplies entering Ukraine from Romania.
Footage circulating on social media showed a Geran-2 drone impacting the bridge spanning the Dniester River, which links Odessa to Reni on the Romanian border. The corridor functions as a vital alternative route for transporting fuel, military materiel, and exports when the Port of Odessa is threatened. Ukrainian officials reported that traffic across the bridge was halted and confirmed one civilian fatality in the strike.
The attack follows an emerging Russian campaign to isolate Odessa both logistically and through energy disruption. Earlier this week, Russian forces struck the road and railway bridge over the Dniester estuary at Zatoka—another key link to Romania—while simultaneous missile and drone barrages have battered Odessa’s port and power infrastructure, leaving prolonged blackouts across the city.
Odessa remains Ukraine’s gateway to the Black Sea and to Danube trade routes into Europe. Successful interdiction of Odessa’s logistics and energy networks would deal a major military and economic blow to Kiev, which depends on grain exports through the port as one of its last significant sources of state revenue.
On the battlefield, by Thursday that Russian forces were close to capturing the remaining districts of Mirnograd, the twin city of Pokrovsk, where Ukrainian troops have been encircled for over a month. Analysts expect that once Russia consolidates control over the Pokrovsk–Mirnograd agglomeration, Moscow will push further north and west, heightening the risk of severing Ukrainian communications across the Donbas and into the Zaporizhia region.
At the same time, a Russian delegation is due to arrive in Miami on Saturday to meet with U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff as the peace negotiations that were started by President Donald Trump remain at a deadlock.