At least seven dead in a missile attack on Lviv, in the western fringe of Ukraine | International

The violence has again approached Ukraine’s border with the European Union. Several missile attacks on the city of Lviv, about 70 kilometers from Polish territory, have caused the death of at least seven people on Monday, according to the head of the regional military administration, Maksim Kozitskyi. At least 11 people, including a child, have been injured in this offensive directed against military infrastructure. Meanwhile, the city of Mariupol, in the southeast of the country, is reluctant to cede control to Russia in the face of the atrocious military siege it has suffered for weeks and the Kremlin’s ultimatum for its surrender. The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, has criticized this morning the delay in the delivery of weapons committed by the allied countries.

The mayor of the city, Andrii Sadovi, revealed that there were five missiles that had fallen in the municipality, and that there were four that had caused destruction in the urban area: three rockets were directed at military buildings and a fourth fell on a car repair station. In this last location four people lost their lives, according to Kozitskii. The military chief of the Lviv province only specified that the bombardment had hit military infrastructure, including a disused warehouse.

The Ukrainian authorities limit to the maximum that the media disseminate details and images of enemy actions against targets considered strategic, even under threat of imprisonment. This happened on March 26, when two attacks with Kalibr precision missiles destroyed fuel depots in the center of Lviv and damaged tank repair hangars. The Army did not reveal this information and even prevented journalists from taking pictures of the damage caused by Russian bombs in a school next to the hangars.

On March 13, Russian missiles targeted the Yavoriv military base, some 40 kilometers northwest of the city and 20 kilometers from Poland, killing at least 35 people and wounding 134. The Yvoriv base went back into operation shortly after as a military training center, sources from the Army confirmed to EL PAÍS. Military spokesmen in Lviv indicated that today’s attack, like the one in Yavoriv, ​​would have been carried out from bombers that would have taken off from Russian bases in the Caspian Sea. The invading Army aviation avoids flying over Ukraine due to the numerous casualties caused by the anti-aircraft defense systems.

Sadovi has detailed in a press conference that, among the injured on Monday, there are two people in critical condition. Eight residential buildings and a school have suffered damage. “Currently, there are no safe and dangerous cities in Ukraine”, said the mayor of Lviv to alert the population of the danger despite the apparent tranquility in which the country’s western provinces live, compared to those on the eastern war front and from the South. “I once again appeal to the residents of Lviv that when they hear the sirens, they go to the shelters. That will save their lives”, Sadovi insisted. In large cities such as Lviv or Dnipro, far from the areas most affected by the war, a large part of the population ignores the sirens that warn of a possible air attack. These sirens are activated when Ukrainian radars detect enemy missiles that may be directed at their territory.

Lviv has been, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, on February 24, one of the main exit points from the country for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, due to its proximity to the Polish border. Most of the nearly 5 million Ukrainian refugees abroad have passed through Lviv on their way to Poland. But this region also plays a decisive role in receiving military material from European and North American NATO member countries. The Russian Defense Ministry has warned that weapons convoys entering Ukraine through western borders are also a target to be destroyed.

Offensive on military targets

In kyiv, the country’s capital, a reporter from the Reuters agency has heard a series of explosions near the Dnipro River, while the media outlet Suspilne has reported that two people were injured in attacks in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk, in the center of the country.

For its part, Russian aviation has reported more than a hundred attacks on military targets in Ukraine in recent hours, according to the morning war report from the Russian Defense Ministry. “The operational-tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces attacked 108 areas of concentration of Ukrainian military personnel and equipment,” spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

According to information from the Ministry headed by Sergei Shoigu, the offensive destroyed 16 Ukrainian military facilities overnight, including five command posts, a fuel depot and three ammunition depots, as well as Ukrainian armor and forces. ‎

The Russian Army, according to Monday’s report, has struck near Mikolaiv, in the south of the country; Barvenkovo, in the Kharkov region, in the northeast; in Popasna, in Lugansk, and in Yampol and Kramatorsk, in Donetsk, on the eastern fringe of Ukraine.

Mariupol resists

While Russia maintains bombardments in various parts of the country, the punished Mariupol resists the siege and the ultimatum of the Russian Armed Forces. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmitro Kuleba, stated this Monday that this city “no longer exists” after the enormous material damage caused by the Russian attacks and stressed that the situation in the city is “hard at the military level” and ” disheartening.” “The city no longer exists. What remains of the Ukrainian troops and a large group of civilians are basically surrounded by the Russian forces. They continue their fight, but it seems from the way the Russians are behaving in Mariupol that they have decided to raze the city to the ground at any cost,” he said.

Kuleba has highlighted in an interview granted to the American television network CBS that in recent weeks “there have been no contacts with Russian diplomats at the level of the Foreign Ministry” and has stressed that, as Zelenski has pointed out, “Mariupol could be a red line.

Zelenski criticized on Sunday the delay of some allied countries in the deliveries of ammunition and weapons that the Ukrainian government has been requesting since the beginning of the war. “We are grateful to those who really help with whatever they can. But those who have the weapons and ammunition that we need and delay their supply should know that the fate of this battle also depends on them”, the Ukrainian president said in his daily address to the population.

The Ukrainian president has assured that each delay in the delivery of weapons is “a permit” for Russia to “take the lives” of the Ukrainians. “This is how Russia interprets it. That shouldn’t be the case in reality,” he added. The Kremlin insisted on Monday that the military campaign in Ukraine would continue. The war, according to the Government of the invading Army, is going “according to the plan” foreseen. “The special military operation continues. President [Vladímir Putin] He recently said that everything is going according to plan”, said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, at his daily press conference.

The Kremlin spokesman referred to the negotiations with kyiv to reach a ceasefire and said that “the position (of Ukraine) changes often and the dynamics of the progress of the negotiating process leaves much to be desired.”

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