A Russian air attack on Ukraine’s western city of Lviv has killed seven people, including three children, according to Ukrainian officials.
Moscow has stepped up its aerial attacks after Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region.
The missile and drone strike on Lviv’s historic centre triggered renewed calls from Ukrainian officials for Western partners to provide air defence systems and long-range weapons to retaliate by attacking targets deep inside Russia.
“In total, seven people died in Lviv, including three children,” Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said search and rescue operations were on in Lviv, located near the border with NATO member Poland, which has largely been spared over the last two and a half years of war.
Sirens rang out over Lviv before sunrise on Wednesday, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy, who advised people to take shelter as air defences worked to down a barrage of missiles.
At least 40 people were wounded, the prosecutor’s office said, the attack damaging schools and medical facilities as well as buildings in the city centre.
The assault on Lviv was part of a wider barrage across Ukraine, with 13 missiles and 29 drones launched, the air force said, adding that it downed seven missiles and 22 drones.
Wreckage of a downed missile fell in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian emergency services said, damaging the Arena hotel and wounding five people.
Ukrainian officials denounced the overnight attacks on civilian infrastructures in Lviv and Kryvyi Rih.
“The enemy will pay for what it has done,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
The weapons delivered by Ukraine’s Western partners since the full-scale invasion often come with restrictions prohibiting their use against targets located inside Russia.
Ukraine has been pushing for these restrictions to be lifted, a call that Shmyhal echoed following the recent strikes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also called for Western allies to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons to “respond justly to terror”.
The overnight attack took place after one of the single deadliest bombardments of the war in the central city of Poltava.
More than 50 people were killed and hundreds injured in the attack on a military educational institution and nearby hospital.
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