The last:
- At least seven were killed in rocket attacks in the western city of Liv, the mayor said.
- At least three people were killed in a shelling in Kharkiv, journalists said on the spot.
- Ukrainian forces detain Mariupol steel plant despite Russian demands.
- Ukraine says Russian attacks have halted the evacuation of civilians for a second day.
Russian rockets hit the city of Lviv in western Ukraine on Monday, killing at least seven people, Ukrainian authorities said, as Moscow troops stepped up infrastructure strikes in preparation for a full-scale attack in the east.
Clouds of thick black smoke rose over the city after a series of explosions shattered windows and caused fires. Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have seen only sporadic strikes in almost two months of war and have become a relative refuge for people in parts of the country where fighting has intensified.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmihal has vowed to fight “to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, where the last known pocket of resistance in a seven-week siege was hidden in a sprawling tunnel-covered steel plant. Russia has repeatedly called on forces to lay down their arms there, but others ignored a surrender or die ultimatum on Sunday.
People are taking shelter after an air raid siren sounded in Lviv on Monday, following earlier air strikes in the area. (Joe Redl / Getty Images)
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovi said seven people were killed and 12 were injured in rocket attacks during the night. Lviv Regional Governor Maxim Kozitsky said Russian strikes had hit three military infrastructure and a tire shop. He said a child was among the injured, and emergency services were battling the fires caused by the strikes.
“The nightmare of war has overtaken us”
A hotel that houses Ukrainians fleeing battles in the east is among the buildings badly damaged in the attack, the mayor said.
“The nightmare of the war has caught up with us even in Lviv,” said Lyudmila Turchak, 47, who fled the eastern city of Kharkiv with her two children. “There is no place in Ukraine where we can feel safe.”
Smoke can be seen on the horizon after Russian missiles hit an area in Lviv on Monday. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) A woman makes the sign of the cross while attending an Orthodox service on Palm Sunday at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Petros Janakouris / Associated Press)
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 ground offensive in Donbass, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking eastern industrial center.
The Russian military said the missiles hit more than 20 military targets across Ukraine during the night – including ammunition depots, command headquarters and groups of troops and vehicles. Meanwhile, artillery is said to have hit another 315 Ukrainian targets, with military planes hitting 108 Ukrainian troops and military equipment. Allegations cannot be verified independently.
Russia seeks to take Donbass
General Richard Danat, a former British army chief, told Sky News that the strikes were part of a campaign to “soften” Russia ahead of a planned ground offensive in Donbass.
The Ukrainian government 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 was negotiating the transition from cities in eastern and southeastern Ukraine, including Mariupol and other regions of Donbass. The Luhansk Oblast government in Donbas says four civilians trying to escape have been shot dead by Russian forces.
Russia is seeking to take over Donbass, where Moscow-backed separatists already control part of the territory after its attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, failed.
People pass by the tower of a destroyed tank in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
“We are doing everything we can to ensure the defense of eastern Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address to the nation on Sunday.
The impending offensive in the east, if successful, will give Russian President Vladimir Putin a much-needed victory to sell to the Russian people amid growing casualties in the war and economic hardship caused by Western sanctions.
Mariupol is a “shield defending Ukraine”
The capture of Mariupol is seen as a key step in preparing for any eastern offensive, as it would liberate Russian troops. The fall of the city on the Sea of Azov will give Russia the greatest military victory in the war, giving it full control of the land corridor to the Crimean peninsula, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and deprive Ukraine of a major port and valuable industrial assets. .
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hana Malyar described Mariupol as a “shield defending Ukraine”.
The city was reduced to rubble during the siege, but Russia estimates that several thousand fighters have held back the giant 11-square-kilometer Azovstal steel plant.
Ira Slepchenko, 54, is standing next to coffins, one of them with the body of her husband Sasha Nedolezhko, 43, during an exhumation of a mass grave in Mikulichi, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Emilio Morenati / Associated Press)
“We will fight absolutely to the end, to victory, in this war,” Shmihal, Ukraine’s prime minister, promised on Sunday’s ABC this week. He said Ukraine was ready to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we have no intention of surrendering.”
Many civilians from Mariupol, including children, are also sheltered at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, the city’s patrol police chief, told Mariupol TV.
There seemed to be little hope of a military rescue. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that other Ukrainian troops and civilians there were mostly surrounded.
According to Ukrainian estimates, the ruthless bombing and street fighting in Mariupol killed at least 21,000 people. A maternity hospital was hit by a deadly Russian air strike in the first weeks of the war, and about 300 people were killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians had taken refuge.
WATCH The war has reached a “critical third phase”, says the former US Secretary of Defense:
Russia-Ukraine war reaches “critical third phase”: former US Secretary of Defense
Rosemary Barton spoke live with former US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta about Russia’s changing strategy in its invasion of Ukraine and why this next phase of the eastern flank war is critical. 8:11
Torture Chambers in Southern Ukraine: Zelensky
After the humiliating sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s flagship last week in what Ukrainians boasted of as a missile attack, the Kremlin has vowed to step up strikes on the capital.
Ukraine claims to have hit the Russian warship Moscow with two Neptune missiles; Russia only said it sank while being towed by fire. Russia has said its crew has been evacuated, but their fate remains unclear. Footage released by the Russian military on Sunday shows the Russian naval commander inspecting rows of sailors identified as from the ship at Moscow’s Sevastopol port in Crimea. It was not clear how many sailors were in the group.
Firefighters are working to put out a fire in a residential building following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sunday. (Andrew Marienko / Associated Press)
Airstrikes hit the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern city of Kharkov, killing at least three people and injuring three others on Monday, according to local journalists. One of the dead was a woman who seemed to be going out to collect water in the rain. She was found lying bloodied with a can of water and an umbrella next to her.
At least five people were killed in a Russian shelling in Kharkov, Ukraine’s second-largest city, on Sunday, regional authorities said. Zelensky called the Kharkov bombing “nothing but deliberate terror.”
Zelensky also called for a stronger response to what he said was the brutality of Russian troops in parts of southern Ukraine.
“Torture chambers have been set up there,” he said. “They are kidnapping representatives of local authorities and anyone who is considered visible to local communities.”
He reiterated his call on the world to send more weapons and tougher sanctions against Moscow.
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