Russian strikes hit Lviv near Ukraine-Poland border, killing at least seven
- Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have seen only sporadic strikes during almost two months of war and have become a relative safe haven
- A hotel sheltering Ukrainians who had fled fighting farther east was among the buildings badly damaged in the attack, the city’s mayor said
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Russian missiles hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Monday killing at least seven people, Ukrainian officials said.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said seven people were killed and 12 wounded in overnight missile strikes. Lviv’s regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said the Russian strikes hit three military infrastructure facilities and a tire shop.
He said the wounded included a child, and emergency teams were battling fires caused by the strikes.
A hotel sheltering Ukrainians who had fled fighting farther east was among the buildings badly damaged in the attack, the mayor said.
“The nightmare of war has caught up with us even in Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turchak, 47, who fled with two children from the eastern city Kharkiv. “There is no longer anywhere in Ukraine where we can feel safe.”
Twenty-one-year-old Lviv resident Andrei said he was sleeping when the sirens began wailing at around 8am.
“I slept through the first three strikes, but then when the last one hit, it was like my windows were about to break, and the furniture moved,” he said.
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Lviv, near Ukraine’s border with Poland, had so far been spared being embroiled in the worst of the fighting sparked by Russia’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbour.
“Five powerful missile strikes at once on the civilian infrastructure of the old European city of Lviv,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
“The Russians continue barbarically attacking Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their ‘right’ to kill Ukrainians.”
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Lviv in late March was hit by series of Russian strikes that targeted a fuel depot and injured five people. On March 18, bombardments hit an aircraft repair factory near Lviv’s airport. No injuries were reported.
Russian cruise missiles on March 13 targeted a major military base about 40 kilometres (25 miles) north west of Lviv, killing at least 35 people and injuring 134.
Military analysts say Russia is increasing its strikes on weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure targets across Ukraine to wear down the country’s ability to resist a major ground offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern industrial heartland.
The looming offensive in the east, if successful, would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a badly needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid the war’s mounting casualties and the economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
