Russian threats to strike foreign weapon shipments helping Ukrainian fighters protect their country from the relentless invasion by Russia prompted this strike.
According to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region, more than 30 Russian cruise missiles were fired at the sprawling training center that was located less than 15 miles away from Poland’s closest border point. Poland is an important location for Western military aid to Ukraine.
Lviv was spared much of the destruction that Russia has caused in Ukraine since it invaded. It is now a refuge for those fleeing bombed cities as well as for the nearly 2.6million refugees who fled Ukraine.
In the 18-day invasion, the westernmost target appears to have been Yavoriv’s training center. This facility is also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center. It has been used for years to train Ukrainian military personnel with many instructors from the United States and NATO countries.
It has hosted NATO drills. The site represents a Russian complaint that the NATO alliance, which has 30 members, is getting closer to Russia’s borders. Russians have demanded Ukraine abandon its plans to join NATO.
Maksym Kozytskyi, Lviv governor, said that most of Sunday’s missiles were “shot down because the air defence system worked.” He said that the missiles that made it through killed at most 35 people and injured 134.
Oleksii Reznikov , the Ukrainian Defense Minister, wrote on Twitter that this strike was a “new terrorist assault on peace&security close to the EU-NATO boundary,” and asked Western leaders “close the skies!” The U.S. and NATO allies said that they won’t impose a no fly zone over Ukraine because it would mean shooting down Russian aircrafts and potentially sparking a larger war in Europe.
Russian fighters also attacked the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk (155 miles from Ukraine’s border to Slovakia and Hungary). The attack, according to the mayor, was meant “to sow panic, fear and terror.” Friday’s attack also targeted the airport which has a civilian runway and a military airfield.
Overnight, fighting broke out in several areas of the country. According to Ukrainian authorities, 32 people were injured when Russian airstrikes struck a monastery in the eastern Donetsk area and a children’s resort.
Donetsk’s chief regional administrator stated that another airstrike struck a train heading westward, causing one death and several injuries.
One person was injured and one died in a Russian airstrike in Chernihiv to the north. The attack had destroyed a residential block. Emergency services reported that the victim was also killed.
The fighting intensified around Kyiv, the capital and a strategic and political target for the invasion. There was overnight shelling in the suburbs to the north and Sunday’s missile strike that destroyed a warehouse to its east. Oleksiy Kuleba, chief regional administrator, stated that Russian forces seemed to be trying to paralyze and blockade the capital through night and day shelling.
Kuleba stated that Russian agents were present in the capital and surrounding areas, marking potential targets. He said that Russian agents were operating in the capital and its suburbs, marking potential targets, and that any assault would be met with stiff resistance.
Talks to reach a cease-fire failed again Saturday. The U.S. announced plans for another $200 million in weapons aid to Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that other countries should not send equipment to Ukraine in support of its military.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, accused Russia of trying sever his country and also started “a new stage in terror” by allegedly detaining a mayor from a west-side city of Mariupol.
“Ukraine will pass this test. During Saturday’s nightly address to the nation, Zelensky stated that we need strength and time to defeat the war machine in our country.
A humanitarian convoy was being transported by Russian soldiers to Mariupol. More than 1,500 people have been killed in the encircled city. The Ukrainian military claimed that Russian forces had taken Mariupol’s eastern outskirts and tightened their hold on the strategically important port. Russia could establish a land corridor from Crimea by taking Mariupol and other Azov Sea ports. This is what it took from Ukraine in 2014.
Mariupol, an Associated Press journalist, witnessed tanks firing at a nine-story apartment block. He was also with a group hospital workers who were under sniper fire Friday. Although a worker was saved from a gunshot to the hip, conditions were becoming worse in the hospital. Electricity was only available for operating tables and patients had nowhere else to go.
AnastasiyaErashova was one of them. She wept and trembled while holding a child asleep. Erashova stated that Shelling had just killed her second child and her brother’s child. Her scalp was covered in blood.
She said, “No one could save them.”
A suburb 12 miles northwest from central Kyiv, Irpin is where bodies are found lying in open streets.
“Everything was covered in smoke and everything was dark when I woke up in morning.” As he walked through his neighbourhood, Serhy Protsenko, a resident, said that he didn’t know where or who was shooting. In the distance, explosions could be heard. “We don’t have any radios or information.”
Zelensky encouraged his followers to continue their resistance.
He stated that “We don’t have the right to give up our defense, regardless of how difficult it may seem.” Zelensky later reported Saturday that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since February 24, when the Russian invasion began.
Zelensky once again expressed dismay at NATO’s refusal of declaring a no fly zone over Ukraine. He said that Ukraine had sought out ways to acquire air defense assets. However, he did not elaborate. Biden announced an additional $200 million in aid for Ukraine. An additional $13 billion was included in a bill which passed the House and should be approved by the Senate in the next few days. NATO warned that Russia could be more at risk if a no fly zone is imposed.
Russia was also accused by the Ukrainian president of detaining Melitopol’s mayor, who is located 119 miles west from Mariupol. The Ukrainian leader demanded that Russian forces listen to the pleas of demonstrators in the occupied town for the release of the mayor.
Moscow claimed it would create humanitarian corridors from conflict zones. However, officials in Ukraine have accused Russia of disrupting these paths and firing on civilians. According to the World Health Organization, at least two dozen hospitals have been hit by Russian forces.
Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, stated that only nine of the 14 corridors had been opened on Saturday and that approximately 13,000 people had used them for evacuations around the country.
In a failed attempt at a cease-fire, French and German leaders met Saturday with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. According to the Kremlin Putin laid out the terms for the end of the war. Moscow demanded that Ukraine abandon its bid to become a NATO member and accept a neutral status; that it recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea which it annexed in 2014; that it recognize the independence and demilitarize the separatist areas in the country’s eastern regions; and,
It seems that the Russian invaders have had to fight a lot harder than anticipated against determined Ukrainian fighters. Nevertheless, Russia’s military might be able to bring down the Ukrainian forces.
According to its government, thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed, as well as many civilians, including at most 79 children from Ukraine. According to the United Nations refugee agency, at least 2.5 million people fled the country.