Russian airstrikes target western Ukraine, three dead

KIEV, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Russian airstrikes hit two western regions of Ukraine that border NATO member Poland and other areas on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding more than a dozen, Ukrainian officials said.

Local media said the attacks were the largest airstrike in the Lviv region since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

The deaths were reported in the northwestern Volyn region. Authorities said an industrial company in the regional capital, Lutsk, was attacked during the overnight attack. Several people were also hospitalized, Governor Yuriy Pohulyaiko said.

Fifteen people were also injured in the Lviv region, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said. Six missiles damaged dozens of buildings and a kindergarten in and around the regional capital. Kozytskyi said the youngest victim was 10 years old.

Both Volyn and Lviv border NATO member Poland and are hundreds of miles from the front line where Ukraine’s army is fending off Russian troops in the nearly 18-month war.

The city of Lviv had been spared much of Russia’s airstrikes until July, when seven people were killed by a missile that crashed into a residential building near the historic center.

In general, the city has been seen as a safe haven from the conflict, with some government offices moving there and international NGOs using it as a base. It has also been a transit point for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict to Poland and beyond.

“The daily terror of the Russians has only one goal: to break us, our fighting spirit,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, wrote on Telegram. “This will not happen.”

At least two people were also injured in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where Governor Serhiy Lysak said a commercial enterprise and a sports complex were attacked.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said civilian infrastructure, including schools and a hospital, was damaged in a total of eight regions in the strikes on Tuesday, which the air force said involved at least 28 cruise missiles.

Sixteen missiles were downed, the air force said, with no other casualties immediately reported.

Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Warsaw, Maria Tsvetkova in New York and Dan Peleschuk in kyiv; Edited by Angus MacSwan

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