Kyiv Bridge Hit Again as Merz Pledges Weapons

Russia struck Kyiv's North Bridge for the second day running on Thursday, a drone tearing into the road deck and a heating pipeline, hours after Zelenskyy released footage of the strike and revealed Russia had fired over 1,900 attack drones at Ukraine in a single week. The timing looked pointed: Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kyiv by train that morning with defence executives, pledging interceptor drones and long-range weapons, and Zelenskyy said fresh deals with Berlin were coming. The damage wasn't confined to the capital. Sumy was hit twice: drones and a guided bomb killed a 52-year-old man and wounded 16, including a one-year-old baby, then five more guided bombs wounded five others and sparked a fire. Ukraine answered in kind, destroying a Buk-M3 air-defence system in Zaporizhzhia, a drone site near Donetsk, and a Russian jamming station in Bryansk. Further afield, North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile 1,000 km toward the Sea of Japan with Kim Jong Un watching, Finland opened a war-crimes probe into events in Ukraine, and Berlin branded Gerhard Schroder's new Gazprom job a "betrayal." Europe also voted: Latvia's pro-EU party won re-election, with PM Kulbergs set to build a coalition, and Bosnia and Herzegovina polled under the shadow of its stalled EU bid. Brussels separately reported EU asylum applications down 25%.