Officials in western Ukraine said missile strikes hit Lviv Monday killing at least six people in the city that had escaped the worst of the violence of
Officials in western Ukraine said missile strikes hit Lviv Monday, killing at least six people in the city that had escaped the worst of the violence of the Russian invasion that began nearly two months ago. Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozystkiy said three missiles hit military infrastructure sites, while another hit a car tire repair shop. Elsewhere in the country, efforts to evacuate civilians from conflict areas were halted for a second consecutive day Monday. « In violation of international humanitarian law, the Russian occupiers have not stopped blocking and shelling humanitarian routes,’ Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk posted in a statement on social media. Latest Developments in Ukraine: April 18 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of engaging in « deliberate terror » with mortar and artillery strikes on residential neighborhoods in Kharkiv, while Ukrainian forces in the southern city of Mariupol defied a Russian deadline to lay down their arms. Zelenskyy, in a video address late Sunday, said he expects Russia to launch an offensive in the eastern Donbas region « in the near future. » Russia’s withdrawal of its forces from areas around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and other parts of the north in recent weeks prompted assessments from Western military officials that Russia was reinforcing and redeploying those assets to eastern Ukraine. Capturing the Donbas region, which includes Luhansk and Donetsk, along with the port city of Mariupol to the south, would allow Russia to control a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula, which it seized in 2014.
