LONDON — Russian missiles struck Lviv in western Ukraine early Wednesday, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a local official said.
A 14-year-old girl was among the dead, Zelensky said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app.
“More than 30 people were injured,” he added. “Ordinary residential buildings in the city, schools and medical facilities were damaged.”
Serhiy Kiral, deputy mayor of Lviv, told ABC News that at least seven people, including three children, were killed.
“Firefighters are still working to put out the fire and rescue people who may still be under the rubble,” Kiral said early Wednesday.
“It is not clear what genius planned this target – it is only residential areas in the center of Lviv, around the central railway station,” Kiral added.
The attack is the most serious in the western Ukrainian city since last year’s attack that killed 10 people, Kiral said, adding: “Impunity leads to more crime; that’s a general rule.”
Lviv was one of the cities targeted by Russian missiles on Wednesday, Zelensky said. Five people were also injured in Kryvyi Rih, he added. The Ukrainian Air Force wrote on Telegram that it had shot down seven cruise missiles and 22 attack drones overnight. Russia fired a total of two ballistic missiles, 11 cruise missiles and 29 drones, according to the update.
The latest wave of attacks followed missile and drone strikes Monday night and Tuesday morning that killed dozens in three cities. The deadliest incident was a twin ballistic missile strike on the Poltava Military Communications Institute and a nearby hospital that killed more than 50 people and injured hundreds, Ukrainian officials said.
First lady Olena Zelenska said Tuesday’s attack was a “shocking tragedy for all of Ukraine.” Zelensky said he had “ordered a full and prompt investigation into all the circumstances of what happened.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram that the strikes in Poltava and Lviv were aimed at military and defense-industrial targets.
The Poltava military college, according to the ministry, was used to train specialists in communications and electronic warfare, as well as drone operators who carried out strikes with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Russia. The training was conducted under the “guidance of foreign instructors,” the ministry said.
The Lviv attack was carried out using “long-range precision weapons,” including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles and attack drones, the ministry’s report said. The strike targeted “enterprises of the Ukrainian defense industrial complex” involved in the production and repair of “electronic components of aircraft and missile weapons.”
“The strike targets were achieved,” the ministry said. “All designated objects were hit.”
The Poltava attack comes amid an intensification of Russian long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, military targets and critical infrastructure across the country.
Zelensky and his senior officials have pressured Western partners, including the United States, to ease restrictions on kyiv’s use of Western weapons and to allow Ukrainian forces to strike airfields and launch sites in Russia.
“Russia does not have a free hand,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a news conference Tuesday. “We continue to provide Ukraine with air defense systems,” he added.
“We continue to provide Ukraine with other equipment that it can use to repel Russian military assaults, and that will continue to be our policy,” he said.