Ukraine’s western region hit by large-scale Russian air attack

Russia launched a large-scale air attack on Ukraine’s western region of Lviv and the northwestern region of Volyn, hitting buildings, wounding civilians and forcing evacuations, officials said.

“Many missiles were shot down, but there were also hits in Lviv,” the city’s Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday morning, adding that orders were given to evacuate at least one burning apartment building.

Four people required medical assistance and more than 100 residential apartments were damaged in the attack, including a kindergarten that was destroyed by falling debris from a destroyed Russian missile, the mayor said on Telegram.

Earlier, the Lviv region’s governor, Maxim Kozitsky, said that “groups of Russian missiles” were headed towards the region.

At least two people were also injured in a Russian air attack on the city of Lutsk, in Ukraine’s Volyn region, local authorities said on Telegram. The Volyn region, north of Lviv, also borders Poland.

At least one person was also wounded as a result of a Russian attack on Ukraine’s southwestern region of Dnipropetrovsk, where an enterprise was hit and a fire broke out, Serhiy Lisak, the governor of the region said on the Telegram.

Air raid alerts were issued across Ukraine for about two hours, starting at about 2am local time (23:00 GMT on Monday) on Tuesday.

Local news media, The Kyiv Independent, reported earlier that the Ukrainian Air Force had warned that western regions of the country were threatened by Russian missile attacks.

Explosions were also heard in the western Khmelnytskyi region of the country, according to local military administration officials, The Kyiv Independent reported.

According to the Air Force, there is a threat of missile attack targeted at Ukraine's western oblasts. The air raid alert was activated nationwide.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) August 15, 2023

Until July, the Lviv region which is far from the front lines and which borders NATO-member Poland to its west, had been spared most Russian air attacks. But in July, seven people were killed when a missile slammed into a residential building.

Ukrainian media reported that, according to preliminary information, Tuesday’s attack was the largest air assault on the Lviv region since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.