Deadly Russia strike targets Lviv in western Ukraine, Zelenskyy says

(LONDON) — Russian missiles struck Lviv in western Ukraine early on Wednesday, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens of others, marking the latest in a series of deadly overnight attacks in residential areas, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials said.

“More than 30 people were injured,” Zelenskyy said in a statement posted to the messaging app Telegram. “Ordinary residential buildings in the city, schools and medical institutions were damaged.”

Serhiy Kiral, the deputy mayor of Lviv, told ABC News that at least seven people — including three children — were confirmed killed. A 14-year-old girl was among the dead, Zelenskyy said.

“Firefighters are still working to put out the fire, to rescue people who may still be under the debris,” Kiral said early on Wednesday.

The strike was the western Ukrainian city’s worst since an attack last year that killed 10 people, Kiral said, adding, “Impunity leads to more crime; rule of thumb.”

Lviv was one of a few cities across the country that were targeted on Wednesday by Russian missiles, Zelenskyy said. The attack came against a backdrop of intensifying Russian long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, military targets and critical infrastructure nationwide. Several of Moscow’s recent strikes appeared to have included both civilian and military targets, Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said Wednesday.

“Absolutely an elaborate tactic for large-scale deliberate destruction of civilians,” Podolyak said on social media. “The goal is obvious: to intimidate, to shock, to prove that there are no limits to direct genocidal practices.”

Moscow launched missile-and-drone barrages on Monday night and Tuesday morning that killed dozens of people in three cities, according to Ukrainian officials. And Russia late last month unleashed one of its most sweeping aerial attacks since the war began, launching hundreds of missiles and drones toward at least 15 regions in one night.

The deadliest recent incident came Monday night in the form of a double ballistic missile strike on the Poltava Military Communications Institute and a nearby hospital that killed more than 50 and wounded hundreds, Ukrainian officials said.

Zelenskyy and his top officials have been pressing their Western partners, including the U.S., to loosen restrictions on Kyiv’s use of Western weapons, and to allow Ukrainian forces to strike airfields and launch sites within Russia.

“Russia does not have a free hand,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters in a Tuesday press briefing when questioned on the issue. 

“We continue to supply Ukraine with air-defense systems,” he continued.

First lady Olena Zelenska said Tuesday’s attack was a “shocking tragedy for the whole of Ukraine. 

Zelenskyy said he “ordered a full and prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened.”

Ukraine’s air force wrote on Telegram on Wednesday that it downed seven cruise missiles and 22 attack drones overnight. Russia fired a total of two ballistic missiles, 11 cruise missiles, and 29 drones, the update said.

Five people were also injured by a Russian strike in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy added.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram that the Poltava and Lviv strikes targeted military and defense industry targets.

The military college in Poltava, it said, was used to train communications and electronic warfare specialists, as well as drone operators who conducted strikes with uncrewed aerial vehicles, or UAVs, within Russia. Training there was conducted under the “guidance of foreign instructors,” the ministry alleged.

The Lviv attack was conducted using “long-range precision weapons,” including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and attack drones, the ministry’s report said. The strike targeted “enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industry complex” involved in the production and repair of “electronic components of aircraft and missile weapons.”

“The strike targets have been achieved,” the ministry said. “All designated objects have been hit.”

Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said on Tuesday that the “steady provisioning of lethal equipment” to Ukraine by the U.S. was expected to continue.

“We continue to supply Ukraine with other equipment that it can use to push back on Russian military assaults,” he said, “and that’ll continue to be our policy.”

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