LVIV/KYIV: Ukraine said a Russian missile attack killed seven people in Lviv on Monday, the first civilian victims in the western city, and reported signs that Russia had started its anticipated new offensive in the east.
Maksym Kozytskyy, the governor of Lviv which lies 60 km (40miles) from the Polish border, said preliminary reportssuggested there were four strikes, three on warehouses that were not in use by the military and another on a car service station.
“It was a barbaric strike at a service station, it’s acompletely civilian facility,” he told a news conference.
Andriy Sadoviy, mayor of Lviv, said the youngest victimamong the dead was aged 30. The blast also wounded 11 andshattered windows of a hotel housing Ukrainians evacuated from elsewhere in the country, he added.
“Seven peaceful people had plans for life, but today theirlife stopped,” the mayor said.
Driven back by Ukrainian resistance in the north, Moscow hasrefocused its ground offensive in the two eastern provincesknown as the Donbas, while launching long-distance strikes atother targets, including the capital, Kyiv.
Ukraine’s armed forces command said it believed that Russiahad started a new push for control of the east, increasing theintensity of attacks.
“This morning, along almost the entire front line ofDonetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions, the occupiers attempted to break through our defences,” Security Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov said in televised comments.
“They began their attempt to start the active phase thismorning,” he said.
A man and a woman were killed in Kharkiv on Monday whenshells hit a playground near a residential building, theprosecutor’s office said in a post on Telegram messagingservice.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls a specialoperation to demilitarise Ukraine and eradicate what it callsdangerous nationalists. It rejects what Ukraine says is evidence of atrocities, saying Ukraine has staged them to undermine peace talks.
Western capitals and Kyiv accuse Russian President VladimirPutin of unprovoked aggression.
Ukraine says five ‘powerful’ missile strikes hit Lviv
Russia’s defence ministry said it had hit hundreds ofmilitary targets in Ukraine overnight. It said air-launchedmissiles had destroyed 16 military facilities in the Kharkiv,Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions and in the port of Mykolayiv, which are in south and east Ukraine.
It added that the Russian air force had launched strikesagainst 108 areas where Ukrainian forces were concentrated and Russian artillery struck 315 Ukrainian military targets.
‘Hell on earth’
Russia is trying to take full control of the southeasternport city of Mariupol, which has been besieged for weeks andwhich would be a huge strategic prize, linking territory held bypro-Russian separatists in the east with the Crimea region thatMoscow annexed in 2014.
Major Serhiy Volyna, commander of Ukraine’s 36th marinebrigade which is still fighting in Mariupol, appealed for helpin a letter to Pope Francis, saying women and children weretrapped among fighters in the city’s steel works.
“This is what hell looks like on earth … It’s time (for)help not just by prayers. Save our lives from satanic hands,”the letter said, according to excerpts tweeted by Ukraine’sambassador to the Vatican.
Ukraine called for Russia to facilitate a humanitariancorridor for evacuees from Mariupol and one from the steel plant that is the city’s last significant area of Ukrainianresistance.
Ukrainian soldiers hold out in Mariupol, pope laments ‘Easter of War’
The Azovstal steelworks are one of Europe’s biggestmetallurgical plants, covering more than 11 sq km (4.25 sqmiles) and overlooking the Sea of Azov.
Video and audio footage showed explosions rumbling and smoke rising from the steelworks, which contain myriad buildings, blast furnaces and rail tracks.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Monday that the situationin Mariupol was “extremely difficult” but the city was not under full control of Russian forces.
Two captured British men who fought with Ukrainian forces inMariupol appeared on Russian state TV on Monday and asked to be exchanged for pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk who is being held by Ukrainian authorities.
It was unclear how freely the two men - Shaun Pinner andAiden Aslin - were able to talk.
Medvedchuk, meanwhile, was shown in a video released byUkraine’s SBU intelligence service asking to be swapped for the defenders of Mariupol and citizens struggling to leave. It was also unclear how freely Medvedchuk was speaking.
Taking Mariupol would unite Russian forces on two of themain axes of the invasion, and free them up to join an expected new offensive against the main Ukrainian force in the east.
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner said on Monday that the civilian death toll from the war in Ukraine had surpassed 2,000, reaching 2,072 as of midnight on 17 April from the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.
About 4 million Ukrainians have fled the country.