Vladimir Putin’s spring offensive into Ukraine is underway after an enormous barrage of drones struck civilian areas, killing six people including a toddler.
At the least 46 people were injured within the rare daylight attack that struck a UNESCO World Heritage site in Lviv, officials said.
It comes as Moscow’s army stepped up efforts to interrupt through Ukrainian frontline defences by firing almost 400 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight in its biggest attack in weeks.
The onslaught continued into Tuesday morning as dozens of drones targeted the capital Kyiv during daylight.
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Russia launched swarms of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, hitting no less than seven cities, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.
Daytime strikes injured 13 people, including three children, within the central Ukraine city of Dnipro, and one other daylight attack hit an apartment block within the centre of the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border, where 13 people were injured, regional officials said.
The Lviv attack set fire to the town’s Seventeenth-century St Andrew’s Church, which is an element of a Unesco World Heritage Site, prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
Lviv’s old town, in-built the 1200s, is an architectural marvel of ornate churches, wide boulevards and a grandiose UNESCO-protected opera house.
Just an hour’s drive from the Polish border, Lviv was considered relatively secure in Ukrainian terms.
It’s subject to regular aerial attacks but is much from the frontline, in regards to the same distance as London to Berlin.
Within the central city of Ivano-Frankivsk, the attack damaged maternity hospitals and about 10 apartment buildings, in keeping with Svitlana Onyshchuk, the top of the regional military administration.
Two people were killed and 4 injured, including a six-year-old child, she said.
Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless barrages since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour greater than 4 years ago.
US-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the past 12 months have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s offer of a ceasefire, and in recent weeks the Iran war has diverted international attention from Ukraine’s plight.
On the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, the short-handed defenders have been bracing for a brand new offensive by Russia’s larger army because the weather improves.
The commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russian troops in recent days have made simultaneous attempts to interrupt through defensive lines in several strategic areas.
‘Fierce fighting unfolded along the complete line of contact,’ Gen Syrskyi said on Monday on the Telegram messaging app, with Russia launching 619 attacks in 4 days.
‘The occupiers are trying to bring up recent units and are preparing to proceed attacks’, Gen Syrskyi said, adding that Ukraine had deployed reinforcements to counter the assaults.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said Gen Syrskyi’s report backed up its assessment that Russia’s spring-summer offensive is now underway.
Russia has escalated its strikes since March 17 and has moved heavy equipment and more troops to the front line, the ISW said late on Monday.
Annually, because the weather improves, Russia has moved its grinding war of attrition up a gear.
Nevertheless, it has been unable to capture cities and has made only incremental gains across rural areas.
Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine.
That features the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.
Ukraine has developed advanced drone technology to make up for its shortage of infantry.
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