Traffic came to a standstill in Kyiv on Friday after one of the city's main bridges was closed and restrictions were placed on others after another wave of deadly Russian drone strikes.
Long queues of stationary cars and buses were gridlocked on main roads in the Ukrainian capital as commuters sought alternative routes -- or even made their way on foot.
"I've been travelling for three hours... to get to work," said Tetiana Osypenko, a 49-year-old seamstress whose bus was stuck in a traffic jam.
"There's just no way to get there. Nothing. It's impossible to cross the bridges today," she told AFP.
Traffic built up due to the complete closure to all vehicles in both directions on the Southern Bridge, one of eight connecting the east and west of Kyiv over the Dnipro river.
The Paton Bridge, further north, was open only one way, city mayor Vitali Klitschko said, but there were no reports that it had been hit.
Russian drones struck the support structures of the Southern Bridge on Thursday. The crossing was temporarily closed while a structural assessment was made.
It reopened to traffic and Metro train services soon afterwards but suffered repeated drone strikes on Thursday night and early on Friday, Klitschko said.
The second on Thursday night damaged a bridge pier, the road surface and a protective concrete barrier along the subway line, he added.
Ukraine has long feared an attack on its major transportation bridges since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Kyiv has been increasingly under aerial bombardment from Russian drones and missiles in recent months, putting the city on near-constant alert and disrupting daily life.
Air raid sirens warning of approaching threats in the skies sound almost round the clock, urging the city's estimated three million people to seek shelter.
Repeated strikes on trains and petrol stations have already hit the rail and road networks while attacks on energy facilities threaten power and heating as winter approaches.
Osypenko, the seamstress, said she would not get home because of the traffic jams. Previous disruption to subway services during air raids forced her to spend the night in a metro station near the Southern Bridge.
Not being able to work costs her money, compounding the rising cost of living due to the war, she added. "You just spend the whole day feeling completely beaten down."
The latest Russian attacks killed one person and wounded at least two other people when a 25-storey residential building was hit in southeast Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelensky urged tougher sanctions to prevent Russia from manufacturing its new jet-powered drones, which are faster and harder to intercept.
Russia's production of the weapons was "critically dependent" on foreign components, he wrote on social media on Friday.
"Every Russian drone can actually be stopped right at the production line. What is needed is the political will of these countries," he added.
"If the Kremlin has chosen more strikes, sanctions must work and must be strengthened."
Zelensky has repeatedly called on Ukraine's Western allies for more military support, particularly for US-made Patriot missile interceptors.
On Thursday evening, he said Ukraine had used its FP-7 tactical ballistic missile in combat for the first time, without disclosing where or what it had been used against.
Ukraine's military on Friday said it struck an oil refinery in Volgograd and another facility in Samara, both in southwest Russia, for supplying fuel to Russian forces.
The government in Kyiv, meanwhile, dismissed reports that its F-16 fighter jet fleet could be grounded due to delays in maintenance inspection and the supply of parts.
But Zelensky told the Financial Times that around half of Ukraine's fleet was spending lengthy maintenance periods in Europe.