Russia's fresh air strike in Ukraine's Lviv kills 7, including 3 children

Sept. 4, 2024, 8:58 a.m.

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A Russian attack on the historic heart of Lviv in western Ukraine has resulted in the deaths of seven people, including three children, officials stated on Wednesday. This follows a particularly brutal assault on the central city of Poltava the previous day, where dozens perished.

Moscow has stepped up its aerial attacks after Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, which caught Russian troops by surprise.

The overnight attacks have sparked renewed calls from Ukrainian officials for Western partners to provide air defence systems and long-range weaponry to enable retaliation against targets deep within Russia.

Advertisement “In total, seven people died in Lviv, including three children,” Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram, upping the previously reported toll.

He indicated that search and rescue operations were ongoing in Lviv, a western city situated close to the Polish border that has largely remained unscathed over the past two and a half years of conflict.

Sirens blared across Lviv before sunrise on Wednesday, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy, who urged residents to seek shelter as air defences worked to intercept a barrage of missiles.

The missile attack wounded 40 people, the prosecutor’s office said, damaging schools and medical facilities as well as buildings in the city’s historic centre.

‘Inhuman screams’

“I heard terrible inhuman screams saying ‘Save us’,” said Yelyzaveta, a 27-year-old resident of Lviv who rushed to shelter in her basement.

Others, like Anastasia Grynko, an internally displaced person from Dnipro, were unable to reach a shelter in time.

“The rocket hit our house. Everything was blown away. At the time of the explosion, I was somehow miraculously in the corridor, so I was not badly hurt,” she said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced what he called “Russian terrorist strikes on Ukrainian cities”.

Lviv region head Maksym Kozytsky said that “at least seven architectural objects of local importance were damaged”, adding that “all the buildings are located in the historical area and in the UNESCO buffer zone.”

Advertisement The attack in Lviv was part of a widespread assault on Ukraine, with 13 missiles and 29 drones launched against the war-torn country, according to the air force.

The air force said it downed seven missiles and 22 drones.

‘Respond justly’

Debris from a downed missile fell in the central city of Kryvyi Rig, Ukrainian emergency services reported, causing damage to the Arena hotel and injuring five people.

“The hotel is destroyed from the first to the third floor. Thank God, everyone is alive,” the city’s head Oleksandr Vilkul said.

Ukrainian officials condemned the overnight attacks targeting civilian infrastructure in Lviv and Kryvyi Rig.

“The enemy will pay for what it has done,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said.

Advertisement He advocated for enhanced air defenses and the provision of long-range weapons to retaliate against Russia.

The weapons delivered by Ukraine’s Western partners since the invasion often come with restrictions prohibiting their use against targets located inside Russia itself.

Ukraine, however, has been advocating for the lifting of these restrictions, a request that Shmygal echoed following the recent strikes.

Zelenskyy also called for Western partners to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons to “respond justly to terror”.

The surprise attack happened soon after one of the deadliest bombardments of the ongoing two-and-a-half-year war in the central city of Poltava.

Fifty-three people were killed and 271 injured in an attack that hit a military educational institution – though authorities did not say how many of the victims were military or civilians.

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