Four killed in Russian rocket attack on western city Lviv as apartment building hit

Devastating drone footage shows the aftermath of a Russian missile attack on Lviv which has killed at least four people.

Around nine others were injured in an overnight attack, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said today.

Approximately 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged, Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.

Drone video posted by Volodymyr Zelensky shows damaged buildings viewed from above, with third and fourth floors of a building ruined.

Emergency services have been searching for people trapped in the debris in the city which has seen hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian war refugees flee to from other areas to the east.

Volodymyr Zelensky said he wanted a counteroffensive to have started earlier and had urged Western allies to supplies weapons for that to happen, according to excerpts via a translator in an interview to CNN.

“I’m grateful to the US as the leaders of our support but I told them as well as the European leaders that we would like to start our counteroffensive earlier, and we need all the weapons and materiel for that,” he was quoted as saying.

“Why? Simply because if we start later, it will go slower.”

Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used cluster munitions that have killed Ukrainian civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report today.

The international advocacy group has called on both Russia and Ukraine to stop using the weapons, and urged the US not to supply them.

Ukraine fired cluster munition rockets into Russian-controlled areas in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium last year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Human Rights Watch said, citing interviews with more than 100 residents, witnesses and local emergency personnel.

The Ukrainian attacks killed at least eight civilians and wounded at least 15 civilians in Izium, Human Rights Watch said.

The group has previously reported that Russia’s use of cluster munitions in Ukraine has killed scores of civilians, and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council has also documented the use of such bombs by both sides.

More than 120 countries have signed on to an international treaty banning the weapons, which typically scatter a large number of smaller so-called bomblets over a large area that can kill or maim unwary civilians months or years later.

Russia, Ukraine and the US have all to declined to sign the treaty.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will serve a “strong” response to Russia for its overnight attack on Lviv which killed four people.

“Lviv. Consequences of the night attack by Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the relatives! There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A strong one,” he said this morning.

Former president Donald Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis do not grasp the broader implications of their call for limited military assistance to Ukraine, former vice president Mike Pence has alleged.

“With all due respect, I think the former president and the governor of Florida just don’t understand Americans’ national interest in supporting the Ukrainian military in repelling the Russian military in Ukraine,” Mr Pence, who is competing with his White House boss and Mr DeSantis for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said during the interview before a campaign event in Sioux City.

Mr Pence, who visited Ukraine last week, said, “Make no mistake, China is watching.”

Three people have been killed in a Russian missile attack in Lviv, Ukraine, and the mayor says more people are wounded.

Mayor Andriy Sadovyi says around 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged.

Emergency service workers are searching in the debris early on Thursday morning for more people trapped.

Russian state TV attacked Yevgeny Prigozhin, the exiled mercenary leader of an aborted armed mutiny last month, and said an investigation into what had happened was still being vigorously pursued.

In a programme called “60 Minutes” broadcast on Wednesday evening on the state Rossiya-1 TV channel, what was billed as exclusive footage shot during law enforcement raids of Mr Prigozhin’s office in St Petersburg and one of his estates there was shown.

The programme’s host, lawmaker Yevgeny Popov, called Mr Prigozhin “a traitor” and the footage was presented by a specially invited guest and journalist Eduard Petrov as proof of the Wagner chief’s criminal past and hypocrisy in calling out corruption in the armed forces.

The footage showed boxes full of high-denomination roubles in his office and bundles of dollars in his luxurious residence along with what was called his personal helicopter, an arms cache, a collection of wigs, a fully equipped medical treatment room, and a collection of souvenir sledge hammers, the tool Wagner allegedly used to bludgeon traitors to death in videos that surfaced online.

“Nobody planned to close this case. The investigation is ongoing,” said Mr Petrov, adding that investigators had concluded that a video used by Mr Prigozhin as a pretext to start the mutiny which showed an alleged Russian strike on a mercenary camp was a fake.

Images of armed Russian law enforcement agents entering Prigozhin’s office were shown.

“I consider that the creation of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s image as a people’s hero was all done by media fed by Yevgeny Prigozhin,” said Petrov, referring to media outlets financed by Prigozhin. “After it failed, they quickly closed and fled.”

The founder of the Wagner mercenary group, took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on 24 June, seized the command centre there where Russia coordinates its war in Ukraine, and sent a column of fighters towards Moscow before standing down after striking a deal with the Kremlin.

At least three people have been killed in a Russian rocket attack on western city of Lviv in Ukraine, mayor said.

Shortly after announcing injuries due to rocket fire, mayor Andriy Sadovy said three people have been killed in the attack.

Regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy said in a Telegram post that a critical infrastructure facility had been damaged, without providing further details.

Widespread air alerts were sounded across Ukraine earlier today amid reports of cruise missiles entering Ukrainian airspace.

Mr Sadovy also reported a series of explosions in his city.

At least four people were injured after explosions in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv and the casualty count was growing, a local official said.

Officials said a Russian rocket struck an apartment building overnight in the western Ukrainian city.

“At this moment it is known that four are wounded as a result of rocket fire,” mayor Andriy Sadovy said in a post on his Telegram channel.

One person in a serious condition had been transported by ambulance, the mayor said.

“The number is increasing,” Mr Sadovy said.

The United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden and Ukraine launched a case against Iran at the United Nations’ highest court Wednesday over the downing in 2020 of a Ukrainian passenger jet and the deaths of all 176 passengers and crew.

The four countries want the International Court of Justice to rule that Iran illegally shot down the Ukraine International Airlines plane and to order Tehran to apologize and pay compensation to the families of the victims.

Flight PS752 was travelling from Tehran to Kyiv on Jan. 8, 2020 when it was shot down soon after takeoff. The people killed included nationals and residents of Canada, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, as well as Afghanistan and Iran. Their ages ranged from 1 year to 74 years old.