(NewsReady.com) – Russia has carried out another terror attack against Ukrainian civilians. At least three cruise missiles hit the city of Lviv last Thursday, one of them exploding in an apartment building. Five people died in the attack.
Around 1 A.M. on July 6, Russian forces fired a salvo of 10 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles towards Lviv, a city of 717,000 people in western Ukraine, about 40 miles from the Polish border. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down seven of the missiles, but the three remaining Kalibrs — a two-ton supersonic missile that carries a half-ton warhead — made it through the defenses and landed in residential areas. Ukrainian sources said the rockets were launched in groups, which headed north at first, then changed course and headed west. This appeared to be an attempt to test Ukraine’s air defenses.
Andriy Sadovy, the mayor of Lviv, said about 50 cars and 60 apartments were destroyed in the attack. The local military commander said a piece of “critical infrastructure” had been damaged, but didn’t go into further detail.
One of the missiles hit a large apartment building, destroying the roof and the top two floors. Six residents were killed, one of them a 95-year-old woman. The provincial governor paid tribute to her, saying that she’d survived WWII but not Russia’s invasion. Around 30 others were injured, and emergency services said it’s possible more victims could still be buried in the rubble.
Lviv’s western location means it’s safe from Russian ground forces and artillery, but Kalibr missiles have a range of around 1,600 miles and can reach anywhere in Ukraine. Normally, military forces would use them to hit high-value targets like bridges, headquarters, or key industrial facilities. Instead, Russia is seemingly using them to punish Ukraine’s civilian population. Authorities gave citizens in the area the all-clear to return to normal activity around 3:20 A.M.
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