Russia strikes Ukraine army base near Poland as it widens attacks | Russia-Ukraine war News

Russian troops launched multiple air strikes at the training ground near the western city of Lviv, local official said.

Russian troops have launched multiple air raids on a large Ukrainian military facility outside the western city of Lviv near the Polish border, Ukrainian officials said, in what appeared to be the westernmost attack since Moscow launched an invasion on February 24.

Russia “launched an air strike on the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security”, the head of the Lviv regional administration, Maxim Kozitsky, said on Sunday on his verified Facebook page, adding that eight missiles were fired.

Initial reports indicated “there are no dead, but information about the injured and wounded is being clarified”, said Anton Mironovich, spokesman for the Academy of Land Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, according to Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

The governor of Lviv, however, said at least nine people were killed and 57 others wounded in the air raid on the facility.

Al Jazeera was unable to verify the reports regarding the attack and casualties. Russia offered no immediate comment.

The 360 square km (140 square miles) Yavoriv military facility less than 25km (15 miles) from the Polish border, is one of Ukraine’s biggest and the largest in the western part of the country. Ukraine holds most of its drills with NATO countries there.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said foreign military instructors worked at the facility. “Foreign instructors work here. Information about the victims is being clarified,” he said in an online post.

Many Ukrainians have fled to relative safety in Lviv since the launch of Russia’s invasion.

A short drive from European Union member Poland, the city is also a transit hub for those leaving Ukraine.

Separately, the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine said the city’s airport was targeted in an attack.

“According to preliminary information, this morning’s explosions were from an attack on the airport,” Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv said on Facebook.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Russian forces they face a fight to the death if they try to occupy Kyiv as air raid sirens again woke residents on Sunday morning.

“If they decide to carpet bomb and simply erase the history of this region … and destroy all of us, then they will enter Kyiv. If that’s their goal, let them come in, but they will have to live on this land by themselves,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

The president, who has repeatedly appeared on social media from the capital, said some small towns no longer existed in the third week of the Russian attacks, the biggest assault on a European country since World War II.

Russian shelling has trapped thousands of people in besieged cities and sent 2.5 million Ukrainians fleeing to neighbouring countries.

Ukraine accused Russian forces on Saturday of killing seven civilians in an attack on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv. France said Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown no readiness to make peace.

The Ukrainian intelligence service said the seven, including one child, were killed as they fled the village of Peremoha and that “the occupiers forced the remnants of the column to turn back”.

Moscow denies targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on February 24. It blames Ukraine for failed attempts to evacuate civilians from encircled cities, an accusation Ukraine and its Western allies strongly reject.