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In the early hours of Sunday, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, usually considered as one of the safest locations in the country, suffered one of its most intense strikes following the start of Russia's full-scale military campaign.

For five hours, Moscow's Iranian-designed drones and missiles struck the city, situated around 70km from the Polish border. Significant blasts could be heard from the downtown area, a designated UNESCO heritage location.

Victims and Damage Across the Country

Nationwide, at least five people were killed – four individuals in the region of Lviv and another in the city of Zaporizhzhia. Additionally, 14 people were injured. Included among the victims was a 15-year-old girl, who perished along with three other relatives when their residence was impacted.

Sections of Lviv was experienced power outages, according to the city leader. Significant fires erupted in several locations, including a industrial zone in the southern part of the urban center.

As the acrid odor of smoke and fumes engulfed the city, the regional governor advised inhabitants to close their windows and avoid going outside or to use protective masks or respirators.

Regional Reactions and Defense Actions

Polish military aviation reported it deployed fighter aircraft and implemented defensive measures to secure its airspace following a previous violation by Russian decoy drones. Additionally, there were numerous unmanned aircraft observations last week in European Union nations including Germany and Denmark.

• More than fifty rockets and about five hundred unmanned assault vehicles were utilized in the attack.
• Armaments comprised long-range guided missiles, Iranian-designed Shaheds and high-speed ballistic rockets.
• Several regions were affected, among them Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odessa, Kherson, Sumy, Kharkiv oblast and Chernihiv territory.

Call for Global Support

The nation's leader urged international partners to strengthen air defense systems and to establish a restricted airspace – a step that to date been approached cautiously.

"A unilateral ceasefire in the air is attainable – and it is exactly this which could open the way to real diplomacy. America and Europe must take action to make Putin stop," the message noted.

In recent days, Russia has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure, causing power blackouts in several regions, a tactic employed in the approach to winter for the previous three winters. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces has been strike fuel infrastructure within Russia with its domestically developed long-range drones.

Community Consequences

The city was underway of the yearly Lviv literary festival, with writers and audiences assembled in the city for one of the largest book festivals in eastern Europe.

Alongside local authors, such as literary figures Artur Dron and Julia Musakovska, there were global participants featuring British Forward prizewinning author Fiona Benson, and, participating by video link, the Booker prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo, and the Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk.

On Sunday morning, ash was continuing to descend on the roads of Lviv, as exhausted residents ventured out and attended church services. The damaged wreckage of a unmanned aircraft lay on a pavement outside a apartment building, cordoned off with red tape.