(Reuters) – Russia launched overnight airstrikes from Monday to Tuesday on the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Lutsk, killing at least three people and injuring several, local authorities said.
Three people were killed and several hospitalized in Lutsk after a commercial enterprise was hit, Yuriy Pohulyaiko, governor of the Volhynia region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
The Volhynia region is bordered to the west by Poland, a member of NATO.
The Russian airstrike on the city of Lviv caused no casualties, according to initial reports, but more than 100 residential houses were damaged, 500 windows shattered and a playground was destroyed.
“Many missiles were shot down, but Lviv was also hit,” the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said on the Telegram messaging app, adding that the order had been given to evacuate at least one building. house in flames.
Andriy Sadovyi posted a video where you could see a crater in front of a multi-storey building, all the windows of which were destroyed, as well as debris on what appeared to be a playground.
The Ukrainian Air Force said it destroyed 16 of the 28 air and sea missiles launched by Russia. The number of missiles launched on Lviv and Volhynia was not immediately specified.
According to Ukrainian media, Tuesday’s airstrike is the largest on Lviv since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the attacks in the west of the country.
Air alerts were issued across Ukraine for about two hours, at 2 a.m. (2300 GMT).
At least one person was injured following a Russian attack on the Dnipro region in southwestern Ukraine, where a business was hit and a fire broke out, Serhiy Lisak said , the governor of the region, on Telegram.
(Written by Lidia Kelly in Warsaw and Maria Tsvetkova in New York; French version Kate Entringer)
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