LVIV, Ukraine — Seven people were killed and 11 injured, including a child, in Russian airstrikes on Lviv, Ukrainian officials said Monday, amid renewed attacks in northern and western Ukraine over the weekend.
The deaths were the first reported in Lviv, though others have been recorded in the area, regional officials said. Last month, Russian forces struck a military facility in nearby Yavoriv, killing at least 35 people and injuring over 130.
Air raid sirens sounded in Lviv after the apparent strikes, which sent a cloud of thick black smoke into the air. Shops and cafes in the usually bustling city center closed as locals headed to underground shelters. News that the deadly strikes had hit near the city’s landmark train depot, the first stop for many families fleeing violence elsewhere, was interpreted as a clear message: Nowhere in Ukraine is safe from Russian attack.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said “five powerful missile strikes” hit “the civilian infrastructure of the old European Lviv.”
Lviv’s position in the relatively quiet west has made it an important hub for displaced Ukrainians fleeing bombardment elsewhere, foreign diplomats who no longer feel safe at embassies in Kyiv, and groups bringing military and humanitarian supplies into the country via the nearby Polish border. Over the Easter weekend, families went to church services and took evening strolls carrying bouquets of flowers.
Monday’s attack punctured that bubble of normal life. Residents who said they often shrug off air raid sirens filed into underground bunkers, where they traded Telegram messages in search of information on what had been hit. People huddled over their phones to look at the first images emerging — shrapnel-pocked civilian cars, damaged apartment buildings and a fire near train tracks.
Alexander Kamyshin, the head of Ukraine’s national rail company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said several missiles fell near railway facilities. He said no one was harmed and train traffic had resumed. Ukrzaliznytsia said in an earlier statement that passengers waiting to board trains in Lviv were placed in bomb shelters when air raid sirens went off.
The reports of missile strikes come after explosions were reported over the weekend in Lviv and around the capital, Kyiv. Moscow warned it would step up these attacks in retaliation for Ukrainian strikes after Ukraine claimed it destroyed Moscow’s flagship in the Black Sea, the Moskva, with an anti-ship missile.
Russia continues to focus most of its military efforts on fighting in the east.
Timsit reported from London, and Stern reported from Mukachevo, Ukraine.
