Another bloody drama. At least seven people were killed and 11 others injured in “powerful” Russian strikes on Lviv, the major city in western Ukraine usually relatively spared from the fighting, local authorities said.
“Five powerful missile strikes at once on the civilian infrastructure of the old European city of Lviv”, announced on Twitter Mikhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Significant material damage
The regional governor, Maksym Kozitsky, mentioned four strikes: three on military infrastructure and one on a tire garage, causing fires. All are “seriously damaged”. “At this time, seven dead are known,” he added, also referring to “eleven injured, including a child”, and specifying that three injured are “in serious condition”.
At the scene of the strike on the garage about four kilometers from the center of the city, AFP journalists saw the building on fire, with carcasses of cars in a crater near a railway line. A resident of southwest Lviv told AFP he saw thick plumes of gray smoke rising into the sky behind apartment buildings. Andriï, 21, said he heard the anti-bombing sirens around 8 a.m. “I slept during the first three knocks, but when the last one fell, it was as if my windows were going to explode. And the furniture moved, ”he testifies.
The mayor of the city, Andriï Sadovy, confirmed the strikes, indicating on Telegram that help was on the spot. Ukrainian railways, for their part, indicated on Telegram that “several missiles fell near the railway installations”, without causing any casualties and without hindering traffic. “We will repair our damaged infrastructure. The railway continues to operate, ”said the chairman of the board of directors of the company, Alexandre Kamychine, publishing the photo of houses on fire directly near a railway line.
A city of refuge
“The Russians continue to barbarically attack Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their “right” to… kill Ukrainians,” Mikhailo Podoliak lambasted. Located far from the front, Lviv and western Ukraine have rarely been targeted by bombardments since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
On March 26, Lviv suffered a series of Russian strikes, two of which hit a fuel depot and injured five, according to local authorities. The city had also been the target on March 18 of a strike which had hit an aircraft repair factory near the airport, without causing any casualties. And on March 13, Russian cruise missiles targeted a major military base about 40 kilometers northwest of Lviv, killing at least 35 people and injuring 134.
Close to the Polish border, Lviv has become a city of refuge for displaced persons and at the start of the war hosted several Western embassies transferred from kyiv.