Ukraine suffered new deadly Russian bombings on Wednesday which killed seven people including three children in Lviv, hundreds of kilometers from the front, the day after a particularly bloody strike in Poltava.
Moscow has stepped up its attacks on its neighbour since kyiv launched a surprise offensive on Russia’s Kursk region last month, capturing hundreds of square kilometres.
“Seven people, including children, have died” in Lviv, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said on Telegram, explaining that “search and rescue operations are continuing.”
A total of 53 people were also injured, according to the regional military administration. More than 50 buildings were damaged in the city center, including two medical facilities and two schools, according to the Culture Ministry.
“I heard terrible, inhuman screams,” Ielyzaveta, 27, a resident of the affected neighborhood, told AFP.
Buildings in central Lviv were covered in soot and charred cars and debris littered the ground, an AFP journalist at the scene saw.
Marked by its Polish and Austro-Hungarian heritage, Lviv has a historic center listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and “at least seven architectural buildings” were hit on Wednesday, according to the head of the city’s military administration, Maksym Kozytsky.
Located in western Ukraine, nearly 1,000 km from the front, Lviv has been relatively spared by Russian missiles compared to cities in the east, south and centre of the country, but it remains periodically targeted.
53 dead in Poltava
Another strike hit Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, injuring five people, he announced.
Mr Zelensky denounced “Russian terrorist attacks” and once again called on the West to provide his country with more military resources to “put an end to terror”.
He has been repeating this message over and over again as Moscow multiplies its massive strikes, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure or targeting cities far from the front.
On Tuesday, at least 53 people were killed and nearly 300 were injured in a strike by two ballistic missiles targeting a military institute in the city of Poltava in central Ukraine.
According to Zelensky, the particularly deadly strike hit the Institute of Communications, which has been training military telecommunications specialists since the 1960s.
The Russian military said on Wednesday that its attack had hit a military training center where, “under the direction of foreign instructors, specialists in communications and electronic warfare […] were trained,” as were “drone operators involved in strikes” on Russian soil.
Popular Ukrainian bloggers and officials reacted angrily to the strike on Tuesday, accusing the military command of leaving such a concentration of troops in one place, making them an easy target for Moscow.
Volodymyr Zelensky ordered “a full and rapid investigation” into the circumstances that led to the strike.
Cabinet reshuffle
On the political front, at least seven Ukrainian politicians, including Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in office since 2020, have submitted their resignations since Tuesday evening.
In addition to Mr. Kuleba, who has become one of the leading voices of the Ukrainian cause internationally, the ministers of strategic industries, justice and the environment have also resigned, opening the way to a major cabinet reshuffle.
“More than 50% of the members of the government will be replaced,” David Arakhamia, leader of the parliamentary party of the presidential party, assured on Telegram on Tuesday evening.
On Monday, it was the director of the Ukrainian electricity grid operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytsky, who announced that he had been dismissed from his post.
President Zelensky has made several reshuffles since the start of the war, including sacking his defense minister in September 2023 after corruption scandals and replacing the army chief of staff following battlefield setbacks.
The changes come as the Russian military has accelerated its advance in eastern Ukraine, particularly towards Pokrovsk, a major logistics centre from which it is less than 10 kilometres.
Revealing that the situation there is “difficult”, as the commander of the Ukrainian army Oleksandr Syrsky has confided in recent days, Russian troops claimed on Wednesday the capture of a new locality in this area, Karlivka.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such a pace of offensive in Donbass,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday.