Hit by bombing on Monday and Tuesday, Lviv, this western city located 80 kilometers from the Polish border, finds itself on Tuesday, October 11 partly without electricity. The Russian bombs targeted theenergy infrastructure. The Mayor of Lviv reported a “missile strike on critical infrastructure” which left 30% of the city without electricity. There are no known casualties at this time.
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Tuesday morning, the inhabitants scanned the sky before locking themselves in their homes or going down to the shelters when the sirens sounded, around 8:45 a.m. “It’s the alerts card. When everything is red, there is an alert”, explains Ivan who hid six meters under the ground, in the old catacombs of the church of Lviv, transformed into a museum. Ivan keeps his phone handy. There were eight of them with him until noon, quietly waiting for the alert to be lifted.
“The streets of Lviv are almost empty whereas usually they are always crowded.”
Ivan, a resident of Lvivat franceinfo
“Yesterday was like a little apocalypse. So you have to think about protecting yourself and your loved onescontinues Ivan laconic leaving the shelter. And when we can, we take shelter.”
With fighting on two fronts more than 1,000 kilometers from here, in the south and east of the country, and much rarer air alerts in the west, now, and as at the start of the conflict, the war affects all over Ukraine. The bombings have revived for the inhabitants of Lviv a reality that has become more distant for eight months: the war. And for Andriy, we must again prepare for it. “I have reserves of provisions, I’m sure of that. I’m going to buy something to keep warm, candles, small gas canisters. The priorities are medicine, food and heat”he lists.
The heat, the heating take on their full extent when it was barely three degrees Tuesday morning. Both Andriy and Ivan are convinced that Russia will continue to target energy infrastructure. The cold war in a way that we must therefore anticipate.