Russia hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv from the air Monday, killing at least seven in the first known deaths of the war in that city.
BBC reports the rockets hit military facilities and a tire-service center in Lviv, which had been largely spared the violence of Russia’s invasion and served as a conduit for Ukrainians fleeing the war to the West.
Russia said it struck about 100 sites as it prepares for a new offensive in the eastern part of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invaders have struggled to take Mariupol as a number of holdouts refuse to surrender from a steel plant in the devastated southeastern city.
“Russian commanders will be concerned by the time it is taking to subdue Mariupol. Concerted Ukrainian resistance has severely tested Russian forces and diverted men and materiel, slowing Russia’s advance elsewhere,” the U.K. Ministry of Defence tweeted Monday.
Mariupol has suffered greatly from the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he thinks tens of thousands of people have been killed in the city.
“The effort to capture Mariupol has come at significant cost to its residents. Large areas of infrastructure have been destroyed whilst the population has suffered significant casualties,” the ministry tweeted.
The ministry said the devastation belies Russia’s claim at the start of the war on Feb. 24 that it “would neither strike cities nor threaten the Ukrainian population.”