Russia has launched nearly 1,000 drones into Ukraine over the past 24 hours, killing at least eight people in one of the largest-ever daytime attacks on the UNESCO-protected center of Lviv, officials said on Tuesday.
A drone attack in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk killed two people and damaged a maternity hospital, while another person died in the central Vinnitsa region. It was part of an attack that followed violent overnight attacks on residential buildings in several cities that left five other people dead.
In the western city of Lviv, far from the front line, AFP reporters saw pillars of fire rising from a building next to the 17th-century St. Andrew’s Church and Bernardine Monastery in the city center during the evening rush hour.
Firefighters were working to put out a blaze at an apartment building, which had its roof smashed and windows blown out.
Emergency workers and locals took shelter inside a church during the attack, waiting for the all-clear to return.
A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman told AFP it was one of the largest daytime attacks in Ukraine’s history.
Spokesman Yuriy Ignat said: “It’s basically the first time on such a large scale. I don’t remember any daytime attack with such a large number of drones.”
Russia launched 392 drones at night and another 550 during the day on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.
Moscow has often opened fire overnight in the four-year war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
– ‘More protection needed’: Zelensky –
The daytime attack in the center of Ivano-Frankivsk killed two people and injured four others, including a six-year-old child, regional chief Svetlana Onisiuk said on social media.
About 10 residential buildings and a maternity hospital were damaged, she said.
The head of the Vinnitsa region said that one person was killed and 11 injured.
At least 13 people were hospitalized in Lviv.
Unconfirmed video from the city that was widely shared on social media showed a drone crashing into a building near a church in the city center, erupting into a fireball upon impact.
Earlier in Kiev, AFP reporters saw locals – including a mother with her child – holed up in a subway at lunchtime during a rare midday air warning.
The attacks come as Ukraine fears it may struggle to repel Russia’s relentless air strikes as supplies of U.S. air defense systems dwindle in the Middle East war.
“These figures clearly show that more protection is needed to save lives from Russian attacks,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.
The third round of U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kiev aimed at ending Russia’s invasion has been disrupted by the war in the Middle East.
Ukraine sent a delegation to the United States over the weekend in an attempt to restart the negotiating process, but the effort did not yield immediate results.
Kyiv has been seeking to trade its anti-drone technology and expertise for the conventional anti-aircraft missiles it desperately needs, and has sent about 200 military experts to Gulf states facing Iranian drone attacks.
– Housing, infrastructure take a hit –
Russian missiles and drones rained down residential areas and transport and energy infrastructure across Ukraine overnight, local authorities said.
Five people were killed and dozens injured in strikes in the central region of Poltava, the eastern city of Kharkiv, southern Zaporozhye and Kherson.
AFP reporters in Zaporozhye, which has been hit by several Russian attacks, saw fires on multiple floors of a high-rise residential complex, with windows and balconies blown out and gray smoke billowing from the building.
The nighttime attack also cut a vital power line connecting neighboring Moldova to Europe, forcing the country to declare a state of emergency.
Another power line leading to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in the south was also cut, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported.
Russia has seized large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine in a grueling campaign that has forced millions to flee their homes.
In Russia, authorities in the western Kursk region said a Ukrainian attack on a farm killed one person and injured 13 others.
On the battlefield, Russian troops said they had captured a Ukrainian village in the Kharkiv region.
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