At least six people were killed Monday as Russian rockets rained down on Lviv, the western Ukrainian city that has seen a huge influx of refugees from the war-ravaged east. At least 11 more were injured, including a 3-year-old boy who had fled to Lviv with his mother to escape the brutal Russian bombardment of Kharkhiv.
The attack came as the Russian invaders, still smarting after the loss of their Black Sea Fleet flagship last week, appeared to step up an offensive in Ukrainian-held parts of the Donbas.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy said six people were killed when a volley of five cruise missiles hit the city, targeting the train station and railway lines used by refugees fleeing to Europe via Poland. One missile hit a tire-repair center near a railway line, destroying 40 cars and forcing the evacuation of a nearby hotel that has been housing refugees.
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Among those injured, according to a local TV report, was 3-year-old Artem, who lost part of his finger after the pressure blast blew out the window of the room he was staying with his mother.
The Russians have deliberately and relentlessly targeted civilian populations over the past seven weeks, notably in the city of Mariupol and in towns north of Kyiv where the Russian invasion force was repelled.
In recent days the Russian attacks have been more clearly targeted against infrastructure such as railway lines and the military plant near Kyiv thought to have produced the Neptune cruise missiles used against the Russian cruiser Moskva.
But scores of people were killed last week in a Russian missile attack on a train station packed with fleeing women and children in Kramatorsk and Monday’s attack targeted the Lviv station, where passengers were evacuated and ushered into bomb shelters.
“PLEASE, SAVE US,” one terrified passenger tweeted after coming under fire as her train sat at the station. “EVERYTHING IS SHAKING, EVERYONE IS CRYING... MY HEART WILL STOP RIGHT NOW. I FUCKING SAW THESE FUCKING MISSILES FLYING IN.”
Across the country, Ukrainian troops were still clinging on in besieged and devastated Mariupol after rejecting an ultimatum to surrender or be killed on Sunday. The southeastern city on the Sea of Azov has been a key strategic target for the Russians as they try to open up a land bridge between Russian-occupied regions of Donbas and the Crimea.
After giving up on their costly push toward Kyiv, the Russians have rewritten their war aims to focus on gaining territory in the south and east under a unified command led by Major-General Aleksandr Dvornikov, the notorious “butcher of Syria.”
In a statement Monday, the Russian defense ministry claimed to have launched hundreds of attacks on Ukrainian positions overnight, using missiles, aerial bombardment, and artillery to destroy no fewer than 16 installations, including five command posts, a fuel depot, and three ammunition warehouses. The attacks came on targets from Kharkhiv in the northeast to Mykolaiv in the south.
The Russians also appeared to be making ground in the Luhansk region, where four civilians were shot dead in their car as they tried to flee a Russian advance into the town of Kreminna, which has been under massive bombardment for several weeks.
Meanwhile, two British volunteer soldiers captured in Mariupol have appealed for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to help organize their release in a proposed prisoner swap with the detained Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk.
Medvedchuk is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin who was being lined up to head a pro-Russia puppet government in Kyiv after the invasion. He went on the run in February but was recaptured last week and detained for treason.
The two British soldiers, 48-year-old Shaun Pinner and 28-year-old Aslin Aiden, appealed for Johnson’s intervention in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV station. But Medvedchuk himself appears to rate his value to Putin much more highly, suggesting in a video released by Ukraine’s SBU security service that he could be swapped for the trapped residents of Mariupol as well as the city’s remaining defenders.
