INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A series of "powerful" Russian strikes on military infrastructure in Lviv on Monday left several dead and ignited blazes in the west Ukraine
city that has been spared fierce fighting.A resident of Lviv told AFP they could see thick plumes of grey smoke rising above residential
buildings and air raid sirens sounded throughout the city during and after the strikes."At the moment, we are able to confirm that seven
We also know that 11 people are injured
A child is among them," the Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytsky said in an update on the strikes on social media."Three victims are in
critical condition," he added.He said that four Russian missiles, which initially were reported to have claimed six lives, had targeted
Ukrainian military infrastructure and that a car tire center had also been struck."The facilities were severely damaged," Kozytsky said in
an initial post, adding later that unused warehouses had been struck.Twenty-one-year-old Lviv resident Andrei said he was sleeping when the
sirens began wailing at around 8:00 a.m
(06:00 GMT)."I slept through the first three strikes, but then when the last one hit, it was like my windows were about to break, and the
furniture moved," he told AFP.Lviv, near Ukraine's border with Poland, so far been spared being embroiled in the worst of the fighting
sparked by Russia's invasion of its pro-Western neighbor nearly two months ago.Instead, the city has become of refuge for people displaced
from the war-scarred east and at the start of the fighting hosted several Western embassies transferred from Kyiv.The attacks Monday come as
Russia has intensified strikes in and around the capital Kyiv further east, targeting over several days a number of facilities that produce
officials claimed were Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil and the sinking of the Moskva warship."Five powerful missile strikes at once on the
civilian infrastructure of the old European city of Lviv," Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote on Twitter."The Russians
continue barbarically attacking Ukrainian cities from the air, cynically declaring to the whole world their 'right' to kill Ukrainians," he
damaged and there would likely be delays to services, but no passengers or staff were injured.AFP journalists saw black smoke billowing from
the gutted roof of a car repair shop above railway tracks in the northwest of the city, around four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the city
center.Lviv in late March was hit by series of Russian strikes that targeted a fuel depot and injured five people
On March 18, bombardments hit an aircraft repair factory near Lviv's airport
