By Guardian - Ashifa Kassam and agencies - Sun 24 Mar 2024

Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv and the western region of Lviv have come under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials have said, and Polish forces have also been placed on heightened readiness.

Poland says Russian missile targeting Ukraine’s Lviv region violated its airspace while Kyiv suffers third pre-dawn attack in four days

Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with Sunday’s early morning strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut.

A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people has also become a new flashpoint between the two countries, with President Vladimir Putin seeking to tie Kyiv to the attack; Ukraine has denied involvement and Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Saturday accused Putin of seeking to “shift the blame” on to Kyiv for the concert hall attack.

“What happened yesterday in Moscow is obvious: Putin and the other thugs are just trying to blame it on someone else,” said Zelenskiy in response to Putin’s assertion that the suspects had been fleeing towards Ukraine.

“They have brought hundreds of thousands of their own terrorists here, on Ukrainian land, to fight against us, and they don’t care about what is happening inside their own country,” Zelenskiy added.

“That low-life Putin, instead of dealing with his Russian citizens, addressing them, was silent for a full 24 hours, thinking about how to tie this to Ukraine,” he said. “It’s all absolutely predictable.”

Officials in Ukraine said Russia had launched its third pre-dawn attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital of Kyiv.

“Explosions in the capital,” Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, posted on Telegram on Sunday. “Air defence is working. Do not leave shelters.”

The Lviv region’s governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said Stryi district, south of the city of Lviv, near the Polish border, had also been attacked.

Ukraine was earlier placed under a nationwide air alert that warned of cruise missiles being launched from Russian Tu-95MS strategic bombers. The alert was lifted about two hours later.

Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv city military administration, said the missiles were fired at the capital “in groups”.

Preliminary reports suggested there were no casualties or damage, he said, and the city’s air defences had hit “about a dozen” missiles.

“The enemy continues massive missile terror against Ukraine,” Popko said on Telegram. “It does not give up its goal of destroying Kyiv at any cost.”

In Lviv, the mayor, Andriy Sadovy, said about 20 missiles and seven Iranian-made Shahed drones were fired at the region. “They targeted critical infrastructure facilities.”

The Polish Armed Forces Operational Command (RSZ) said its forces were on a heightened state of readiness because of the “intensive long-range aviation activity of the Russian Federation tonight” and the missile attacks in Ukraine.

“Polish and allied aircraft have been activated, which may result in increased noise levels, especially in the south-eastern part of the country,” it said.

It later said Russia had violated Poland’s airspace with a cruise missile which “entered Polish space near the town of Oserdow (Lublin Voivodeship) and stayed there for 39 seconds”.

“During the entire flight, it was observed by military radar systems,” it added.

On Sunday, Poland’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication it was heading towards a target in Poland.

He said the missile had penetrated Polish airspace about 1,000-2,000 metres (0.6 to 1.2 miles).

Poland’s foreign ministry said it would demand an explanation from Moscow over the missile. “Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems,” it said in a statement.

Russia and Ukraine have increased their air attacks in recent weeks.

The Ukrainian military claimed on Sunday it had hit two large Russian landing ships as well as other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea during overnight strikes on the annexed Crimean peninsula.

“The defence forces of Ukraine successfully hit the Azov and Yamal large landing ships, a communications centre and also several infrastructure facilities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in temporarily occupied Crimea,” Ukraine’s military said in a statement.

Moscow-installed officials on the peninsula said their forces had repelled a major Ukrainian aerial attack late on Saturday night. “It was the most massive attack in recent times,” the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said in a Telegram post.

He said a 65-year-old man was killed and four people had been injured. He did not mention any damage to Russian warships, but said transport infrastructure including passenger boats was partly damaged.

“Of the six boats, five had their windows broken … During the day, the windows of the damaged boats will be replaced and as they are restored they will be brought back online,” he said.

Razvozhayev also said that three passenger buses, 13 school buses and one trolley bus were among vehicles damaged during the overnight attacks.

Kyiv, which has struggled to find weapons and soldiers after more than two years of war, has promised to retaliate by taking the fighting to Russian soil.

Multiple air attacks on Saturday on the Russian border region of Belgorod adjoining Ukraine killed two people and injured at least seven, the regional governor said.

Farther east, a drone attack on the Samara region caused a fire at a major oil refinery, the latest in a series of strikes against Russia’s energy industry.

Belgorod’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram that two districts in his region, as well as the regional capital, Belgorod city, had been hit in drone and air attacks.

A man was killed when three balconies on an apartment building collapsed, Gladkov said.

Moscow has escalated its own strikes, firing dozens of missiles on Friday and launching dozens of explosive drones to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Russian forces have also taken control of a string of frontline settlements in recent weeks.

The capture last month of Adviivka, near the Russian-held stronghold of Donetsk, was the first major territorial gain made by Russia since the devastated city of Bakhmut was seized 10 months ago.

Putin hailed that success as a sign that Russian forces were back on the offensive.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report.