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10 people dead after a Russian missile strike on Lviv, one of the largest since the start of the war Dozens of apartment buildings damaged, displaced residents moving to temporary housing

Source: Meduza

Update: The death toll of Russia’s attack on Lviv has risen to 10, according to Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi.

Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, came under a Russian missile strike the night of July 6. According to the city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, this was one of the largest attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Russian Kalibr cruise missiles were launched around 1 a.m. local time. According to the Ukrainian Air Force Command, munitions were launched from the Black Sea. At first, they flew north, following the relief of the terrain by the Dnipro River to get past the Ukrainian air defense installations, before making a sharp westward turn. The air defense was able to take down seven out of the 10 missiles launched.

Four people have been killed as a result of the strike, and another 37 have been injured. According to Mayor Sadovyi, missile remnants destroyed one apartment building and damaged 35 others. The head of Lviv’s wartime administration Maxim Kozitsky says a missile directly struck the building that’s been destroyed. He named three women (two of them aged 60 and 62) and a man who were all killed as a result.

Seven people have been rescued from the rubble following the attack. Emergency and rescue work continues on the scene.

Sixty apartments have been destroyed by the projectiles. Displaced residents will be temporarily housed at a local hotel and in modular housing. The city has allocated 100 million hryvnias (or about $2.7 million) for rebuilding the destroyed and damaged housing.

At least 10 air raid shelters turned out to have been closed during the strike. The police is investigating this failure of preparedness. According to Kozitsky, the shelter next to the destroyed apartment building was open at the time, but only five people took cover there.

A two-day mourning period has been announced in Lviv. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed condolences for the victims’ families. He promised that the strike would not go unanswered.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has described the strike on Lviv as a “focused blow” to Ukraine’s strategic reserves. In a July 6 briefing, the ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Russian armed forces had dealt a “focused blow” to the provisional locations of military personnel and places of storage for Western-made armored equipment. According to the official, all designated targets have been reached, and “substantial damage has been made to the adversary’s strategic reserves.”