LVIV, Ukraine — Waves of Russian missiles hit a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland, killing 35 people. The strike follows Russian threats to hit foreign arms supplies that help Ukrainian militants defend their country from a brutal Russian invasion.
More than 30 Russian cruise missiles have hit a sprawling training complex less than 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the nearest border point with Poland, according to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Poland is a key location for delivering Western military aid to Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Lviv has largely escaped the scale of destruction unfolding further east and has become a destination for residents fleeing city bombings and for many of the nearly 2.6 million refugees who have fled the country.
The training center at Yavoriv appears to be the westernmost target hit during the 18-day invasion. The facility, also known as the International Peace and Security Center, has long been used to train Ukrainian military personnel, often with instructors from the US and other NATO countries.
It also hosted international NATO exercises. Thus, the site symbolizes what has long been a complaint from Russia: the 30-member NATO alliance is moving ever closer to Russia’s borders. Russia has demanded that Ukraine abandon its ambitions to join NATO.
Lvov Governor Maxim Kozitsky said most of the rockets fired on Sunday “were shot down because the air defense system went off.” Those who broke through killed at least 35 people and wounded 134 others, he said.
Russian fighter jets also bombarded the airport in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, which is less than 150 kilometers (94 miles) north of Romania and 250 kilometers (155 miles) from Hungary, countries that are also NATO allies. The airport, which includes a military airfield as well as a runway for civilian flights, was also attacked on Friday.
Fighting also raged in several parts of the country during the night. Ukrainian authorities said Russian airstrikes on a monastery and a children’s sanatorium in eastern Donetsk Oblast hit places where monks and refugees were hiding, injuring 32 people.
Another airstrike hit a westbound train evacuating people from the east, killing one and injuring another, Donetsk’s chief regional administrator said.
In the north, in Chernihiv, one person was killed and another injured in a Russian air strike that destroyed a residential building, emergency services said.
Fighting also intensified around the capital, Kyiv, the main political and strategic target of the invasion, with shelling of the northwestern suburbs during the night and a rocket strike on Sunday that destroyed a warehouse to the east.
In Irpin, a suburb about 12 miles (20 km) northwest of central Kyiv, bodies lay on the streets and in a park on Saturday.
“When I woke up in the morning, everything was in smoke, everything was dark. We do not know who and where is shooting,” said resident Sergei Protsenko, walking through his district. Explosions were heard in the distance. “We have no radio, no information.”
Chief regional administrator Aleksei Kuleba said Russian forces were trying to blockade and paralyze the capital by shelling the suburbs day and night. Kuleba said Russian agents were in the capital and its suburbs, outlining possible future targets.
He vowed that any full-scale assault would be met with fierce resistance, stating: “We are preparing to defend Kyiv and we are ready to fight for ourselves.”
Talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire failed again on Saturday, and the US announced plans to provide Ukraine with another $200 million in weapons. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned other countries that sending equipment to support Ukraine’s armed forces is “an act that makes these convoys legitimate targets.”
Russian soldiers ransacked a humanitarian aid convoy trying to reach the destroyed and besieged port city of Mariupol, where more than 1,500 people have died, a Ukrainian official said. The Ukrainian military said Russian troops had captured the eastern outskirts of Mariupol, intensifying the siege of the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Sea of Azov could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to break up his country, as well as starting a “new stage of terror” with the alleged detention of the mayor of a city west of Mariupol.
“Ukraine will pass this test. We need time and strength to break the war machine that has come to our land,” Zelensky said during an overnight address to the nation on Saturday.
Zelenskiy said that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had died since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
The first major city to collapse earlier this month was Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 290,000. Zelenskiy said on Saturday that the Russians used blackmail and bribery to force local officials to form a “pseudo-republic” in southern Kherson region, much like Donetsk and Luhansk, the two eastern regions where pro-Russian separatists have begun fighting against Ukraine. forces in 2014. One of the pretexts that Russia used to invade was that it was supposed to protect separatist regions.
Zelensky again deplored NATO’s refusal to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine and said Ukraine was seeking ways to procure air defenses, though he did not elaborate. US President Joe Biden has announced another $200 million in aid to Ukraine, with an additional $13 billion included in a bill that has passed the House of Representatives and is due to be passed by the Senate within days. NATO has said imposing a no-fly zone could lead to a wider war with Russia.
Moscow has said it will create humanitarian corridors from the conflict zones, but Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of violating those routes and shooting at civilians. According to the World Health Organization, Russian troops have attacked at least two dozen hospitals and medical facilities.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said that only nine of the 14 agreed corridors were open on Saturday, and that about 13,000 people used them to evacuate across the country.
French and German leaders spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin about a failed attempt to secure a ceasefire. To end the war, Moscow demanded that Ukraine abandon its NATO membership bid and assume neutral status; recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014; recognize the independence of the separatist regions in the east of the country; and agree to demilitarization.
The government said thousands of soldiers from both sides were killed along with many civilians, including at least 79 Ukrainian children.
The Russian occupiers seem to have fought more than expected against the determined Ukrainian fighters. However, a stronger Russian army threatens to overwhelm Ukrainian forces. The United Nations said the fighting has displaced millions of Ukrainians internally, in addition to the millions who left.
Elena Yurchuk, a nurse from the northern city of Chernihiv, was at a Romanian train station on Saturday with her teenage son Nikita, unsure if their house was worth it.
“We have nowhere to go back,” says Yurchuk, a 44-year-old widow who hopes to find work in Germany. “Nothing left.”
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Associated Press journalist Mstislav Chernov from Mariupol and other journalists from all over the world contributed.
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Follow AP reporting on the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.