Russian forces increased their assault on Ukrainian cities on Friday, with new missile strikes and shelling on the edges of the capital Kyiv and the western city of Lviv.
Outside Lviv, black smoke billowed for hours after the early morning strike by several missiles, which the mayor said hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near the city’s international airport, also damaging a bus repair facility. No casualties were immediately reported. The facility had suspended work ahead of the attack, said the mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, on the Telegram messaging app.
A soldier standing guard near the site said he heard three blasts in quick succession around 6 a.m. A nearby resident described his building vibrating from the explosions and people panicking.
The missiles that hit Lviv were launched from the Black Sea, but two of the six that were launched were shot down, Ukrainian air force’s western command said on Facebook.
Not far from the Polish border and well behind the front lines, Lviv and the surrounding area have not been spared Russia’s attacks. In the worst, nearly three dozen people were killed last weekend in a strike on a training facility near the city. Meanwhile, Lviv’s population has swelled by some 200,000 as people from elsewhere in Ukraine have sought shelter there.
Early morning barrages also hit on the northern edges of Kyiv. At least one person was killed by shelling on Podil, a neighborhood just north of downtown Kyiv, according to emergency services. It was not immediately known what was hit in the bombardment.
In city after city around Ukraine, hospitals, schools and buildings where people sought safety from the bombardment have been attacked. Rescue workers searched for survivors in the ruins of a theater that served as a shelter when it was blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged southern city of Mariupol. And in Merefa, near the northeast city of Kharkiv, at least 21 people were killed when Russian artillery destroyed a school and a community center, a local official said.
In the northern city of Chernihiv, dozens of bodies were brought to the morgue in just one day.
