Russia launches main air assault close to Polish border

Kyiv air defence sources mentioned they downed 16 out of at the very least 28 missiles launched by President Vladimir Putin.

Scores of individuals had been injured whereas houses and corporations had been set ablaze. Yuriy Pohulyaiko, Volyn governor, mentioned three individuals had been killed and lots of taken to hospital within the regional capital Lutsk when a enterprise was hit.

Volyn borders Nato-member Poland and there are rising fears that Moscow is turning into emboldened to increase its conflict.

More than 100 homes had been broken in Lviv the place mayor Andriy Sadovyi mentioned: “Many missiles were shot down but there were also hits in Lviv.”

He posted a video of a crater by a multi-storey constructing with all its home windows blasted out and particles apparently from a playground.

The Lviv area is way from the entrance traces of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and it had thus far been spared most of Russia’s air assaults.

But final month seven individuals had been killed as a missile slammed right into a residential constructing.

Today’s assault was reportedly the biggest air assault on the Lviv area because the conflict started in February 2022.

Elsewhere, Kyiv forces managed to push again Moscow’s troops in a part of the south-east the place Ukraine goals to retake Russian-occupied territory.

Hanna Maliar, deputy defence minister, mentioned progress has been slowed by minefields and powerful fortifications thrown up by the invaders.

But she mentioned Ukraine troopers gained floor at Staromaiorske, 60 miles south-west of Russian-held Donetsk, and troops had been preventing for management of the neighbouring settlement of Urozhaine.

Officials in Kyiv have acknowledged that the progress of Ukraine’s long-awaited offensive has been slower than they wished.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine’s southern forces, mentioned: “There are liberated territories.”

Ms Maliar added that Ukraine had wrested again management of two sq. miles across the ruined japanese metropolis of Bakhmut, scene of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.

She additionally mentioned Russian troops had been persevering with their assault across the japanese cities of Kupyansk and Lyman, the place they had been reportedly regrouping.

Ms Maliar added: “The Russians have intensified these offensives after the success of the Ukrainian army on Bakhmut axis”.

Russia nonetheless controls round a fifth of Ukraine, together with the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, Luhansk area within the east and swathes of the areas of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The occupied territory consists of most of Ukraine’s shoreline and elements of the Donbas, its industrial heartland.