(LVIV, Ukraine) — Russian missile strikes hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv Friday around 6:30 a.m. local time, marking the first strike on the city since the invasion began. The missiles hit the area near Lviv’s airport, about 4 miles from the city center, according to the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi.
No casualties were reported after the attack, according to Sadovyi. Lviv is about 50 miles from the border with Poland.
An aircraft repair plant was hit and destroyed and windows in the buildings of the communal transport enterprise were damaged in the strike, Sadovyi said.
Six missiles, likely X-555, were fired from the Black Sea, according to preliminary data from the Ukraine’s western military command. Two of the missiles were destroyed by anti-aircraft missile troops, command said.
In an address Friday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country’s air force is “not enough to ensure safety.”
“Russian forces continue to bomb and shell our cities — from Lviv to Kyiv, from Kharkiv to Chernihiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, cities of Donbas especially Mariupol. They fire missiles, drop bombs and launch GRADs. We try to intercept and shoot down whatever we can: aircraft, helicopters and missiles although we don’t yet possess the adequate anti-missile weapons, modern systems,” Zelenskyy said.
He added that his appeals for weapons will be “more forceful.”
“We’ll remind those leaders that they will suffer moral defeat if they don’t provide us with adequate and modern weapons promised to us, weapons that could quite literally save thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian lives. Russian missiles will not be shot down by age-old rifles that certain parties try to supply to us instead of modern equipment,” Zelenskyy said.
A senior U.S. official told ABC News Thursday that Russians have been using more long range systems, mobile systems repositioned from inside Russia to the border, but on the Russian side. There is apparently concern if they move across the border, guerilla fighters will intercept them.
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