Russian forces have launched several air strikes on a military training center outside the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, less than 25 kilometers from the Polish border, local officials said on Sunday.
Regional Governor Maksim Kozitskiy said 9 people were killed and 57 injured after Russian planes fired about 30 rockets at the International Center for Peacekeeping and Security in Iavoriv. He added that some rockets were intercepted before they hit.
The 360 ​​square kilometer facility is one of the largest in Ukraine and the largest in the western part of the country. Foreign military instructors have already worked at the base, Ukraine’s government said. It was unclear if any were there at the time.
According to a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, rescuers in Iavoriv said the death toll reached 20.
Nineteen ambulances with sirens on were seen by Reuters on their way to the Yaroviv facility after the attack and black smoke rose from the area.
Many Ukrainians have fled to Lviv since the Russian invasion began. 40 km away from Poland, the city is a transit hub for those leaving Ukraine.
Reuters questioned the Kremlin about the attack so close to the border with a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) member country, but received no response until the publication of this report.
Ukraine carried out most of its military training with NATO countries before the February 24 Russian invasion. The last major exercises were in September.
According to Ukrainian media, all foreign instructors left the Iavoriv camp in mid-February.
Another city in western Ukraine, Ivano-Frankvisk, came under Russian attack on Sunday, according to the city’s mayor.
“According to preliminary information, the explosions this morning (Sunday) were from an airport attack,” Ruslan Martsinkiv said on Facebook.
The south of the country also remains under attack, with the besieged city of Mariupol awaiting the arrival of an aid convoy.
The caravan, coming from Zaporizhia, was blocked for more than five hours at a Russian checkpoint on Saturday.
Mariupol, a strategic port city, is in an “almost desperate” situation, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), due to a lack of food, water, gas, electricity and communications.
The Russian government acknowledges that “in some cities” the situation “has reached catastrophic proportions”, according to General Mikhail Mizintsev, quoted on Saturday by Russian news agencies. But the official blamed the tragedy on Ukrainian “nationalists”, accusing them of planting mines in residential areas, destroying infrastructure and arresting the civilian population.
Also in the south, the city of Odessa continues to prepare for an offensive by Russian troops, which are currently concentrated in Mikolaiv, about 100 km to the east. The massive bombings hit a cancer center and an eye clinic, confirmed an AFP journalist.
There are bodies lying on the streets of some cities and the balances are impossible to verify. “About 1,300” Ukrainian servicemen have been killed since Feb. 24, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, the first official count since the invasion began.
The Ukrainian claims that the Russian army lost “about 12,000 men”. Russia, for its part, announced on March 2 its only balance so far, of 498 dead soldiers.
As for civilians, 579 would have been killed, according to the UN, which warns, however, that the real number is likely much higher. Around 2.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the beginning of the war, in addition to around 2 million internally displaced people, according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
In Kiev, airstrike sirens woke residents again on Sunday morning, hours after the Ukrainian president warned Russian forces they would face a fight to the death if they try to occupy the capital.
“If they decide to bomb and simply erase the history of this region… and destroy us all, then they will enter Kiev. If that is their goal, let them in, but they will have to live in this land themselves,” he said. on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, Ukraine accused Russian forces of killing seven civilians, including a child, in an attack on women trying to flee with their children from fighting near Kiev.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify the report and Russia had no comment.
Moscow denies attacking civilians and blames Ukraine for failed attempts to evacuate civilians from besieged cities, which Ukraine and its Western allies deny.
