LVIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russian forces launched rocket attacks on the western city of Lviv and hit a number of other targets in Ukraine on Monday in what appeared to be an intensified attempt to grind the country’s defenses ahead of a comprehensive eastward attack.
At least seven people have been reported killed in Lviv, where streams of black smoke are rising over a city that has seen only sporadic attacks in nearly two months of war and has become a haven for civilians fleeing fighting elsewhere. To the Kremlin’s growing anger, Lviv has also become a major gateway to NATO-supplied weapons and foreign fighters joining the Ukrainian cause.
The attacks came as Russia continued to gather troops and artillery to the east and south for the expected launch of a new ground offensive in the Donbass, Ukraine’s predominantly Russian-speaking industrial center.
In other events, several thousand Ukrainian soldiers, according to Russia, remained hidden in a huge steel plant in Mariupol, the last known pocket of resistance in the devastated southern port city after seven weeks of bombing. Proponents ignored an ultimatum to surrender from the Russians on Sunday.
And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted a completed questionnaire as the first step towards rapid membership in the European Union – a desire that has irritated Russia for years. However, Zelenski offered to abandon all efforts to join NATO, one of the Kremlin’s key demands.
Russia’s missile strikes on Lviv have struck three military infrastructure and a car repair shop, according to regional governor Maxim Kozitsky. He said a child was among the wounded.
Lviv, the largest city and major transport hub in western Ukraine, is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from NATO member Poland.
Russia has complained strongly about the growing flow of Western weapons to Ukraine. In the Russian state media, some presenters accused the supply of a direct Western commitment to the fight against Russia.
Lviv is also seen as a relatively safe place for the elderly, mothers and children trying to escape the war. A hotel that houses Ukrainians fleeing fighting in other parts of the country is among the badly damaged buildings, Mayor Andriy Sadovi said.
“The nightmare of the war has caught up with us even in Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turchak, who fled with two children from the eastern city of Kharkiv. “We are nowhere in Ukraine to feel safe.
A powerful explosion also shook Vasilkov, a city south of the capital Kyiv, where a military air base is located, according to residents. It was not immediately clear what was hit.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was hit by shelling that killed at least three people, according to Associated Press journalists on the spot. One of the dead was a woman who seemed to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found lying with a water can and umbrella next to her.
Military analysts say Russia is stepping up strikes on arms factories, railways and other infrastructure in Ukraine to reduce the country’s ability to withstand a major offensive in the Donbass, which has become a major target of the Kremlin since its experience. to storm Kyiv failed.
The Russian military says its missiles have hit more than 20 military targets in eastern and central Ukraine in the past day, including ammunition depots, command headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles.
He also said that his artillery had hit an additional 315 Ukrainian targets and that military planes had struck 108 strikes on Ukrainian troops and military equipment. Allegations cannot be verified independently.
Over the weekend, Russia also claimed to have destroyed Ukrainian air defense radar equipment.
General Richard Danat, a former British army chief, told Sky News that Russia was campaigning for a “softening” ahead of the Donbass offensive.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure the defense of eastern Ukraine,” Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation on Sunday.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments of the war, said there were now 76 Russian combat units in eastern and southern Ukraine known as battalion tactical groups, up from 65 last week.
That could lead to about 50,000 to 60,000 troops, based on what the Pentagon said at the start of the war was the typical unit strength of 700 to 800 troops, but the numbers are difficult to determine at this stage of the battle.
The official also said that four American cargo flights arrived in Europe on Sunday with the initial delivery of weapons and other materials to Ukraine as part of a $ 800 million package announced by Washington last week. And the training of Ukrainian personnel on American 155 mm howitzers should begin in the next few days.
Ukraine halted the evacuation of civilians for a second day on Monday, saying Russian forces were shelling and blocking humanitarian corridors.
Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said Ukraine had negotiated a safe passage from cities in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, including Mariupol and other regions of Donbas. The government of the Luhansk region in Donbass said four civilians trying to escape were shot and killed by Russian forces.
Vereshchuk warned Russia on social media: “Your refusal to open these humanitarian corridors in the future will lead to the prosecution of all those involved in war crimes.”
The Russians, for their part, accused “neo-Nazi nationalists” in Mariupol of obstructing the evacuation.
The capture of Mariupol, where Ukrainians believe 21,000 people have been killed, is considered crucial, and not just because it will deprive Ukraine of a vital port and complete the land bridge between Russia and the Crimean peninsula occupied by Moscow eight years ago.
The US defense official said that if Russian forces managed to take full control of Mariupol, it could free nearly a dozen battalion tactical groups to use elsewhere in the Donbas.
Meanwhile, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician, who was arrested last week on charges of treason, appeared in a video offering himself in exchange for the evacuation of trapped defenders and civilians in Mariupol. Ukraine’s state security services have released a video of Viktor Medvedchuk, a former leader of a pro-Russian opposition party with personal ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was not clear whether Medvedchuk was speaking under duress.
Putin reiterated his insistence that Western sanctions against Russia have failed.
He said the West had failed to “provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system and a shortage of shops”, although he acknowledged the sharp rise in consumer prices in Russia, saying they had risen by 17.5%.
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This story was updated to correct the attribution of the first partial quote about the struggle to the end of the Ukrainian prime minister, not the president.
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Associated Press reporters Nico Maunis and Philip Crowther of Lviv, Ukraine, Adam Shrek of Vasilkov, Ukraine and Robert Burns of Washington, D.C., contributed to the report, as did other PA officials around the world.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war
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