Kyiv plans to begin construction of several backup crossings over the Dnipro River next week. The plan involves embankment dams with pontoon crossings that would maintain links between the left and right banks if existing bridges are damaged.
Ukraine’s Minister for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport, Mykola Kalashnyk, said this in an interview with Suspilne.
According to him, the main priority remains strengthening and protecting existing bridges from attacks to improve their resilience.
At the same time, the authorities are preparing a backup option for maintaining connections between the two banks of the Dnipro.
“The immediate solutions are a dam and a pontoon crossing, which can be built quickly. This work has already begun,” Kalashnyk said.
According to him, the issue was discussed during a coordination meeting chaired by the president.
The Ministry for Restoration, the Restoration Agency, the military and the Kyiv authorities will be involved in the work.
Construction of the backup crossings could take up to three months.
Kalashnyk said the structures should provide at least half of the traffic capacity of the existing bridges.
According to him, an average of around 600,000 vehicles cross Kyiv’s bridges between the left and right banks every day.
“The task is to preserve this capacity. The locations where construction will begin have therefore already been identified,” the minister said.
Similar backup crossings are planned not only in Kyiv, but also in other regions of Ukraine and not only across the Dnipro.
In addition to pontoon crossings, the ministry is considering the construction of rapidly deployable concrete structures.
In the longer term, the option of building a tunnel under the Dnipro is also being considered.
According to Kalashnyk, such projects could cost tens of billions of hryvnias, and in the case of major infrastructure facilities, even hundreds of billions.
For that reason, they could only be implemented with the involvement of investors, donors and international partners.
At the same time, the main priority remains preventing the destruction of existing bridges.
Kalashnyk said the maximum possible amount of equipment has been deployed for this purpose.
According to him, work is being carried out in four areas: protecting bridges from the air, physically reinforcing the structures, rapidly restoring them in case of damage, and creating alternative backup crossings.
