There will be a "tangible" response to a fatal Russian missile attack on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Four people were killed in Russian strikes on the city overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday morning. Maksym Kozytsky, a local official in the Lviv regional military administration, said the four people were in a residential building that was struck in the attack.
A further 32 people were injured, including a child, Ukraine's Interior Ministry said, and 13 have been admitted at the hospital, Lviv mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, wrote on Telegram.
"There will definitely be a response to the enemy," Zelensky said in a statement posted to social media following the strikes. "A tangible one," he added.
"This is the largest attack on Lviv's civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the full-scale invasion," Sadovyi said. Lviv, in the west of the war-torn country, is far from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine, but has previously been a target for Russian strikes.
Ukraine's air force said Moscow used Kalibr cruise missiles, launched from submarines and surface vessels in the Black Sea, to target Lviv. Seven out of a total of 10 Kalibr missiles were destroyed by Ukraine's air defenses, according to Kyiv's military.
"Several groups of rockets were recorded," the air force said in a statement, adding they initially headed north before they "abruptly changed their course to the west."
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, described the missile strike as "vicious," adding on Twitter that Moscow's "repeated attacks on civilians are absolutely horrifying." The Kremlin has denied deliberately targeting civilians.
Over the past day, Russian forces launched five drone strikes using Iranian-made Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles, Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said in an operational update on Thursday morning.
The strikes come as Ukraine continues to make steady gains in its ongoing counteroffensive in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Kyiv's forces carried out counteroffensive operations in five sectors of the front line on Wednesday, making some gains, the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank said in its latest update.
Ukrainian and Russian troops are engaged in heavy fighting in the fiercely contested Donetsk city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on Wednesday. There were some advances on the northern flank of the city, and Russian fighters are "trapped in the city itself," Maliar said in a statement.
Russia said on Wednesday that up to 290 Ukrainian servicemen and three tanks had been destroyed in the Donetsk area, which includes Bakhmut.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
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