LVIV, Ukraine — Airstrikes hit an aircraft repair facility outside the city of Lviv on Friday, bringing the war closer to a relatively safe haven in western Ukraine that has become a center of refugee transport and humanitarian aid.
The four missiles, which landed before sunrise at the decommissioned repair center outside the Lviv airport — currently in use only for military flights — caused at least one injury, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
In a Facebook post, Sadovyi said the strikes destroyed the building. He warned residents, who have become accustomed to daily air-raid sirens but often ignore them because their city has been largely spared from shelling, to be more vigilant in looking out for danger.
“Be careful, follow instructions when air-raid sirens alert,” he said.
Hours after the attack, plumes of smoke were still rising from the stricken facility on the western edges of Lviv. Several military vehicles converged on the site.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russian forces launched six missiles from the Black Sea, two of which were intercepted.
Friday’s strikes marked the second time in a week that missiles have struck the Lviv area, which has been largely insulated from the war raging in the vicinity of the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere in the country. A swarm of Russian cruise missiles early Sunday hit a military training facility northwest of Lviv, killing at last 40 Ukrainian military personnel.
In Kyiv, residents awoke Friday to another airstrike that hit an apartment building. According to Ukraine emergency service officials, one person was killed and 19 were injured in a fire that engulfed the building after the attack on Podilskyi, a district northwest of the city center.
The attack brought to 222 the total death toll in Kyiv since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor began Feb. 24, the Kyiv city administration said.
Ukrainian officials said Friday that they had agreed with Russia on opening nine humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors in areas including the hard-hit southeastern city of Mariupol, where an airstrike injured at least 130 in a crowded bomb shelter this week, and the eastern city of Sumy, from which thousands of people have already escaped.
Some of the evacuation routes have routinely been blocked over the last several days, according to Ukraine. On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said more than 2,000 people were bused out of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia, about 150 miles away. That represents only a tiny fraction of Mariupol residents wishing to flee their blockaded city, where living conditions have grown increasingly desperate. People are clearing away the rubble themselves. There is no rescue operation, because all the services that are supposed to rescue people, to treat them, to bury them — these services no longer exist.”Sergiy Taruta, Ukrainian lawmaker
Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia have taken place every day this week, with no agreement on an end to the fighting. Earlier in the week, representatives for both sides cited progress in the talks, but in a call Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Putin accused the Ukrainians of stalling. A readout of the conversation from Tass, the Russian state-owned news agency, said the Russian leader accused the “Kyiv regime” of trying to delay negotiations by “putting forward more and more unrealistic proposals.”
Putin has insisted that his own demands — including Ukraine’s “de-militarization” and its renunciation of any intention to join NATO or the European Union — be completely fulfilled before any cessation of armed hostilities.
Pursuit of NATO membership is enshrined in Ukraine’s constitution, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shifted on the issue this week, saying he accepts that the country will not join the alliance.
