Attack on the airport: The rockets hit the western town for the first time, a hub for refugees and western weapons. And trenches are now being dug around the outer belt
FROM OUR MAIL
LEOPOL – The pink sky at dawn in Lviv is filthy with black smoke. Lady of Galicia and Princess of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy now forced to deal with the Tsar’s attacks. Stop asking me why Putin is bombing here too. So why are the hospitals in Kharkiv and the kindergartens in Mariupol affected? Because like Hitler. Mayor Andriy Sadovy is furious at the 109 empty wheelchairs set up there to protest the Moscow raids. It’s 6:08 a.m. when the sirens start to wail. Not a good sign after a quiet night, the first in days. Have you heard?. Everyone who lives near the airport has felt it violently. Six Kh-555 missiles dropped by Russian bombers from the Black Sea, two of which were intercepted by anti-aircraft defenses, Ukrainian aviation later said. Stuff to destroy an entire neighborhood.
24 minutes of sirens
A hangar between the airport and the railway was hit. Exactly four kilometers from the Unesco Heritage Center, the Church of San Pietro e Paolo and the Armenian Church. Next to it a supermarket, a school and a church. The air alert ends at 6:32 a.m. The city is slowly coming out of the bunkers, the pictures on Twitter are already there. yes the airport
On the flyover on the road to Danylo Halytsky Airport, the sky black with smoke. The guards on the bridge are very nervous. The pungent smell hits your nostrils and makes your eyes water. Get away, Russian spies, passers-by yell at the journalists who rushed over.
Kalashnikov aimed
Hijacked phones, deleted videos, targeted Kalashnikovs. No longer the salon that remembers being European. Yes, at the checkpoint, better look down. The arriving cars are checked individually. Molotov cocktails, in a corner, await the intruder. The cars of the SBU, the Ukrainian services, pass at full speed.
On the left side, between the train tracks and the airport runway, firefighters are on duty to put out the flames. Many are queuing to take the bus into town. Workers, employees leaving the Soviet barracks on the outskirts to go to work. But the blocked traffic, even the yellow bus depot was damaged by the explosion, you can’t pass. What would have happened if the rockets had fallen an hour later, someone asks at the bus stop. went well today. No dead, no seriously injured. Lemberg risks the massacre. He is risking the aid hub and refuge of the two million refugees who have passed through Poland and the 200,000 who have stopped here. A disused aircraft hangar was hit, explains Mayor Sadovy. We had just given it up before the war as a precautionary measure. A high-precision attack on Moscow that destroyed a factory parking lot where fighter jets were parked.
But it doesn’t take long to find out. Not only refugees arrive in Lviv. New recruits and military vehicles follow the road ahead in the opposite direction. Yavoriv, the NATO training center razed to the ground on Sunday, a base for foreign fighters and militiamen, is not enough for Putin. The rear also needs to be weakened. The west bastion, which is fighting back between a flash mob on the square, a press conference and a classical concert in the middle, must now be punished. Ukrainian politicians pass here, diplomats, clergy, artists and leaders come here to give support. But it is mainly the weapons arriving from the West that come through from here. Lviv, a symbol of resistance and ammunition storage.
Different fates
The war in Lemberg, about seventy kilometers from Europe. The ace up his sleeve on the negotiating table for Putin. The casus belli in Kyiv to bring NATO here. But the game is not like in Mariupol, where the mayor Vadym Boichenko confirms that the Russian troops have arrived in the center. And less severe than in Mykolaiv, where 45 soldiers died in the bombed-out barracks. The TV station is next in Lviv, says Ivan, a university student who works with the Kiev hackers. Also the train station and its goods station. At least two barracks, two power plants, a tank factory. Truck hubs and logistics centers as well. Everything in the sights of the Russians. Meeting them also means meeting the population. And here not even Hitler dared that much.
trenches and camouflage
The wind changes. There is a debate in the city about whether kindergartens should reopen after elementary school. Too dangerous. And for such young children, it is always traumatic to be taken to emergency shelters. Defenses are being reinforced just outside the second belt of roads. Ditches are dug in the ground softened by the emerging spring, while the mud takes the place of the ice. Along the road to Lutsk, the checkpoints are now small forts covered with camouflage fabric sewn by volunteers in town. Peering out from behind the hill is a soldier with a heavy rocket launcher, one of those who came from outside. When Belarusians arrive, we’re ready to welcome them.
March 18, 2022 (change March 19, 2022 | 09:41)
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