A rare Russian daytime drone attack on Ukraine killed three people, wounded several dozen and set a building in the historic centre of the western city of Lviv aflame yesterday, officials said, following an overnight bombardment that killed five.
More than 550 drones were launched at Ukraine in the middle of the day, Ukraine’s air force said, an abrupt change from Russia’s usual tactic of launching similarly massive aerial attacks at night during its more than four-year-old war.
It followed an earlier attack overnight in which it fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles. Taken altogether, Russia had launched nearly 1,000 long-range drones at Ukraine since Monday evening, Kyiv said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address, said the scale of the attacks showed that more pressure had to be exerted on Russia.
“The scale of this attack clearly shows that Russia has no real intention of ending this war. And considering that Russia is also helping the Iranian regime carry out strikes in the region, the conclusion is obvious,” he said.
“Without additional and strong pressure on Russia, without tangible losses for them there in Moscow, no desire will develop to move away from the war or return to peace.”
Video footage posted online showed a drone crashing into an old building next to a church in the historic centre of Lviv, 60km from the Polish border, and Warsaw said it scrambled fighter jets.
Twenty-two people in the city were wounded, officials said.
The attack stunned residents of Lviv, which lies closer to Vienna than to the nearest active frontline on the other side of Ukraine. Although it has seen some lethal bombardments, they are far less frequent than in other major cities.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said a residential building was hit by a second drone. Debris from a third fell in a street.
“Russia is attacking a crowded city centre in broad daylight,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X.
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said part of the Bernardine monastery complex in the historic centre of Lviv, a Unesco World Heritage Site, had been damaged.
In another western Ukrainian city, Ivano-Frankivsk, a national guard soldier and his 15-year-old daughter were killed by a strike, according to regional Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk.
Vinnytsia Governor Natalia Zabolotna said one person had been killed and 13 wounded in her region, southwest of Kyiv.
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