35 people were killed as waves of Russian missiles hammered a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland. Russian threats to target international weapon shipments that are assisting Ukrainian fighters in defending their country against Russia’s relentless invasion prompted the strike.
According to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region, more than 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the huge training complex, which is less than 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the nearest border point with Poland. Poland is an important transit point for Western military aid to Ukraine.
Lviv had been largely spared the extent of the carnage unfolding farther east since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and had become a destination for inhabitants fleeing battered areas and many of the approximately 2.6 million refugees who had fled the country.
So far in the 18-day attack, the training complex in Yavoriv appears to be the most westward objective. The International Peacekeeping and Security Center, as it is often known, has long been used to train Ukrainian military troops, with instructors from the United States and other NATO countries frequently present.
International NATO drills have also been held there. As a result, the site reflects a long-standing Russian complaint: that NATO’s 30 member countries are pushing closer and closer to Russia’s borders. Russian officials have requested that Ukraine abandon its plans to join NATO.
The majority of the missiles fired Sunday “were shot down because the air defense system worked,” according to Lviv Governor Maksym Kozytskyi. According to him, those who made it through killed at least 35 people and injured 134 others.
Russian fighters also shot at the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, a western city less than 150 kilometers (94 miles) north of Romania and 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Hungary, both NATO partners. On Friday, the airport, which has a military airstrip as well as a runway for civilian planes, was also targeted.
Overnight, fighting erupted in several parts of the country. According to Ukrainian authorities, Russian airstrikes on a monastery and a children’s resort in the eastern Donetsk region injured 32 persons, including monks and refugees.
According to Donetsk’s top regional administrator, another airstrike hit a westward-bound train evacuating passengers from the east, killing one person and wounding another.
One person was killed and another was injured in a Russian airstrike that demolished a residential block in Chernihiv, according to emergency services.
Fighting intensified around Kyiv, the capital, and a major political and strategic objective for the invasion, with overnight shelling in the northwestern suburbs and a missile attack to the east on Sunday destroying a warehouse.
On Saturday, bodies lie out in the open on streets and in a park in Irpin, a suburb approximately 12 miles (20 kilometers) northwest of central Kyiv.
“Everything was shrouded in smoke, and everything was dark when I woke up in the morning.” As he strolled through his neighborhood, Serhiy Protsenko stated, “We don’t know who is shooting and where they are shooting.” In the distance, explosions could be heard. “We don’t have any radio or information,” says the narrator.
Russian forces appeared to be attempting to blockade and cripple the capital with day and night shelling of the suburbs, according to Chief Regional Administrator Oleksiy Kuleba. According to Kuleba, Russian spies were stationed in the city and its surroundings, scouting potential future targets.
“We’re getting ready to defend Kyiv, and we’re prepared to fight for ourselves,” he said, vowing that an all-out invasion would face fierce resistance.
The United States revealed intentions to donate another $200 million to Ukraine for weaponry after talks to achieve a cease-fire failed again on Saturday. Other countries have been warned by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov that supplying arms to help Ukraine’s military is “an action that makes those convoys’ legitimate targets.”
A humanitarian convoy attempting to reach the shattered and beleaguered port city of Mariupol, where more than 1,500 people have died, was pillaged by Russian soldiers, according to a Ukrainian official. Russian forces reportedly stormed Mariupol’s eastern suburbs, intensifying their siege of the important port, according to Ukraine’s military. Taking Mariupol and other Azov Sea ports could allow Russia to open a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
With the purported imprisonment of a mayor from a city west of Mariupol, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of attempting to split his country and of ushering in “a new stage of horror.”
“Ukraine will be able to pass this exam.” During his evening speech to the country on Saturday, Zelensky said, “We need time and power to shatter the war machine that has arrived in our land.”
Since the Russian assault began on February 24, 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, according to Zelensky.
Kherson, a strategic Black Sea port with 290,000 populations, was the first major city to fall earlier this month. Russians are employing extortion and bribery to push local leaders in the southern Kherson region to construct a “pseudo-republic,” similar to those in Donetsk and Luhansk, two eastern districts where pro-Russian separatists began battling Ukrainian forces in 2014. One of the justifications for Russia’s invasion was the need to protect separatist territories.
Zelensky slammed NATO’s failure to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine once more, adding that Ukraine is looking for ways to acquire air defense equipment, though he did not elaborate. President Joe Biden of the United States announced an additional $200 million in aid to Ukraine, with an additional $13 billion included in a package that has cleared the House and is expected to pass the Senate in the coming days. According to NATO, imposing a no-fly zone might lead to a larger conflict with Russia.
Moscow has stated that humanitarian corridors will be established outside of conflict zones, but Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of blocking these routes and firing on civilians. According to the World Health Organization, Russian soldiers have attacked at least two dozen hospitals and medical facilities.
Only nine of the 14 agreed-upon lanes were accessible on Saturday, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, and roughly 13,000 individuals had utilized them to flee the country.
In a fruitless attempt to reach a cease-fire, the leaders of France and Germany spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. Moscow has asked that Ukraine abandon its NATO membership aspiration and accept a neutral position, as well as recognize Russian authority over Crimea, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, recognize the independence of separatist territories in Ukraine’s east, and agree to demilitarize.
Thousands of soldiers on both sides, as well as many civilians, including at least 79 Ukrainian children, are likely to have died, according to the authorities.
The Russian invaders appear to have labored more than they should have against tenacious Ukrainian troops. Despite this, Russia’s superior military threatens to crush Ukrainian forces. According to the United Nations, in addition to the millions who have fled the country, the war has displaced millions of Ukrainians within the country.
Elena Yurchuk, a nurse from Chernihiv in Ukraine’s north, was in a Romanian train station with her teenage son, Nikita, on Saturday, unsure whether their home was still intact.
“We have nowhere to go,” Yurchuk, a 44-year-old widow hoping to find work in Germany, said. “There’s nothing left.”
