By Yuliia Dysa and Max Hunder
KYIV, March 24 (Reuters) – A rare Russian daytime drone attack on Ukraine killed at least three people, wounded 30 and set a building in the centuries-old centre of western Lviv aflame on Tuesday, officials said, following an overnight bombardment that killed five people across the country.
Over 400 drones were launched at Ukraine in the middle of the day, Ukraine’s air force said, an abrupt change from Russia’s usual tactic of launching similarly massive aerial attacks at night during its more than four-year-old war.
Video footage posted online showed a drone crashing into an old building next to a church in the historic centre of Lviv, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the Polish border.
UNESCO SITE HIT, CASUALTIES MOUNT
In another western Ukrainian city, Ivano-Frankivsk, two people were killed and four injured, according to regional Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk. City mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv said windows at a maternity hospital had been blown out, but that nobody in the hospital was harmed.
Vinnytsia Governor Natalia Zabolotna said on Telegram that one person had been killed and 11 wounded in her region.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said a residential building was hit by a second drone, while debris from a third drone fell in a street.
“Russia is attacking a crowded city centre in broad daylight,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X.
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site around the 17th-century St. Andrew’s Church had been damaged.
Air defences also engaged drones throughout the day near Kyiv.
Ukraine’s air force posted warnings on social media of drones overhead in more than a dozen areas across the country.
Officials in Vinnytsia and Ternopil, both several hundred kilometres from the frontline, said explosions were heard in their cities and told residents to remain in shelters.
OVERNIGHT ATTACK
The daytime strikes came after a wave of overnight strikes that killed five people across Ukraine and caused disruption to power supplies in Moldova. Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 34 missiles and 392 drones overnight and that 25 missiles and 365 drones had been downed or neutralised.
Two people were killed and 12 injured, including a five-year-old child, in the attack near the eastern city of Poltava, a regional official said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said damage had been reported in 11 regions and issued a new appeal for allies to supply Kyiv with air defence munitions.
He has repeatedly warned that Kyiv, whose main supplier of air defence systems against ballistic missiles is the United States, will face a deficit of missiles while Washington is focused on the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
“It’s important to continue supporting Ukraine. It’s important that all agreements on air defence are implemented on time,” he said on X.
Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi said the Isaccea–Vulcanesti power line, Moldova’s key link with Europe, had been affected.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu wrote on X: “Alternative routes are in place, but the situation remains fragile. Russia alone bears responsibility.”
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Jacqueline Wong, Timothy Heritage and Andrei Khalip)
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