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Russian airstrikes hit Ukrainian capital and outskirts of Lviv

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Black smoke billowed for hours after the explosions, which hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near Lviv’s international airport, as Russian forces pressed their attacks on several of Ukraine’s cities. The early morning barrage of missiles on the outskirts of Lviv were the closest strike yet to the center of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine. As reported by the AP:

Multiple blasts hit Lviv in quick succession around 6 a.m., shaking nearby buildings, witnesses said, the missiles were launched from the Black Sea

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces pressed their assault on Ukrainian cities Friday, with new missile strikes and shelling on the capital Kyiv and the outskirts of the western city of Lviv, as world leaders pushed for an investigation of the Kremlin’s repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, and residential areas.

Ukrainian servicemen carry containers backdropped by a blaze at a warehouse after a bombing on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Russian forces destroyed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering Wednesday and rained fire on other cities, Ukrainian authorities said, even as the two sides projected optimism over efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The early morning barrage of missiles on the outskirts of Lviv were the closest strike yet to the center of the city, which has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or fight.

Black smoke billowed for hours after the explosions, which hit a facility for repairing military aircraft near the city’s international airport, only six kilometers (four miles) from the center. One person was wounded, the regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said.

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows burning buildings in a residential area in northeast Chernihiv, Ukraine on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

Multiple blasts hit in quick succession around 6 a.m., shaking nearby buildings, witnesses said. The missiles were launched from the Black Sea, but the Ukrainian air force’s western command said it had shot down two of six missile in the volley. A bus repair facility was also damaged, Lviv’s mayor Andriy Sadovyi said.

Lviv lies not far from the Polish border and well behind the front lines, but it and the surrounding area have not been spared Russia’s attacks. In the worst, nearly three dozen people were killed last weekend in a strike on a training facility near the city. Lviv’s population has swelled by some 200,000 as people from elsewhere in Ukraine have sought shelter there.

A cloud of smoke raises after an explosion in Lviv, western Ukraine, Friday, March 18, 2022. The mayor of Lviv says missiles struck near the city’s airport early Friday. (AP Photo)

Early morning barrages also hit a residential building in the Podil neighborhood of Kyiv, killing at least one person, according to emergency services, who said 98 people were evacuated from the building. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said 19 were wounded in the shelling.

Two others were killed when strikes hit residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, according to the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

People put up plastic sheets to cover the broken windows of their apartments after parts of a Russian missile, shot down by Ukrainian air defense, landed on an apartment block, according to authorities, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Russian forces destroyed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering Wednesday and rained fire on other cities, Ukrainian authorities said, even as the two sides projected optimism over efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

In city after city around Ukraine, hospitals, schools, and buildings where people sought safety have been attacked. Rescue workers searched for survivors in the ruins of a theater that served as a shelter when it was blown apart by a Russian airstrike in the besieged southern city of Mariupol Wednesday.

In Kharkiv, a massive fire raged through a local market after shelling Thursday. One firefighter was killed and another injured when new shelling hit as emergency workers fought the blaze, emergency services said.

People clear debris outside a medical center damaged after parts of a Russian missile, shot down by Ukrainian air defense, landed on a nearby apartment block, according to authorities, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Russian forces destroyed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering Wednesday and rained fire on other cities, Ukrainian authorities said, even as the two sides projected optimism over efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

The World Health Organization said it has verified 43 attacks on hospitals and health facilities, with 12 people killed and 34 injured.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that American officials were evaluating potential war crimes and that if the intentional targeting of civilians by Russia is confirmed, there will be “massive consequences.”

Medical staff sit in a hospital basement, used as a bomb shelter, during an air raid alarm in Brovary, north of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

The United Nations political chief, Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo, also called for an investigation into civilian casualties, reminding the U.N. Security Council that international humanitarian law bans direct attacks on civilians.

She said many of the daily attacks battering Ukrainian cities “are reportedly indiscriminate” and involve the use of “explosive weapons with a wide impact area.” DiCarlo said the devastation in Mariupol and Kharkiv “raises grave fears about the fate of millions of residents of Kyiv and other cities facing intensifying attacks.”

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office on Thursday, March 17, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, shakes hands with a wounded Kateryna Vlasenko, 16, a refugee from Vorzel who covered her junior brother with her body during Russian shelling as they ran from their home town in a hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

About 35,000 civilians left Mariupol over the previous two days, Kirilenko said Friday.

Hundreds of civilians were said to have taken shelter in a grand, columned theater in the city’s center when it was hit Wednesday by a Russian airstrike. On Friday, their fate was still uncertain, with conflicting reports on whether anyone had emerged from the rubble. Communications are disrupted across the city and movement is difficult because of shelling and fighting.

Ukrainian firefighters extinguish a blaze at a warehouse after a bombing in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Russian forces destroyed a theater in Mariupol where hundreds of people were sheltering Wednesday and rained fire on other cities, Ukrainian authorities said, even as the two sides projected optimism over efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

“We hope and we think that some people who stayed in the shelter under the theater could survive,” Petro Andrushchenko, an official with the mayor’s office, told The Associated Press Thursday. He said the building had a relatively modern basement bomb shelter designed to withstand airstrikes. Other officials said earlier that some people had gotten out.

A man injured in a bombing lies on a stretcher at a hospital hallway during an air raid alarm in Brovary, north of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Video and photos provided by the Ukrainian military showed the at least three-story building had been reduced to a roofless shell, with some exterior walls collapsed. Satellite imagery on Monday from Maxar Technologies showed huge white letters on the pavement outside the theater spelling out “CHILDREN” in Russian — “DETI” — to alert warplanes to the vulnerable people hiding inside.

Russia’s military denied bombing the theater or anyplace else in Mariupol on Wednesday.

A picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs at a target practice range in Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth week on Thursday, with Russian forces largely bogged down outside major cities and shelling them from a distance, raining havoc on civilians. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

In Chernihiv, at least 53 people were brought to morgues over 24 hours, killed amid heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire, the local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV Thursday.

Ukraine’s emergency services said a mother, father and three of their children, including 3-year-old twins, were killed when a Chernihiv hostel was shelled. Civilians were hiding in basements and shelters across the embattled city of 280,000.

People who fled the war in Ukraine wait at the train station in Przemysl, southeastern Poland, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Poland has admitted some 1.95 million refugees fleeing war and Russian aggression on Ukraine. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

“The city has never known such nightmarish, colossal losses and destruction,” Chaus said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said early Friday he was thankful to President Joe Biden for additional military aid, but he would not get into specifics about the new package, saying he did not want Russia to know what to expect. He said when the invasion began on Feb. 24, Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference Thursday, March 17, 2022, at the State Department in Washington. (Saul Loeb/Pool via AP)

Instead, he said, Ukraine had much stronger defenses than expected, and Russia “didn’t know what we had for defense or how we prepared to meet the blow.”

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading economies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of conducting an “unprovoked and shameful war,” and called on Russia to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to stop its attack and withdraw its forces.

Ukrainian entrepreneur Yevhen Potoplyak, 42, reads a story to his sons Ostab and Denys via videoconference in Lviv, western Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. Yevhen’s two sons and his wife Maria left for Poland on Feb. 26. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Both Ukraine and Russia this week reported some progress in negotiations. Zelenskyy said he would not reveal Ukraine’s negotiating tactics.

“Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,” Zelenskyy said. “I consider it the right way.”

This image made available by Azov Battalion, shows the drama theater, damaged after shelling, in Mariupol, Ukraine, Thursday March 17, 2022. Rescuers are searching for survivors in the ruins of a theater ripped apart by Russian airstrikes in the besieged city of Mariupol, while ferocious Russian bombardment killed dozens in a northern city over the past day, according to the local governor. (Azov Battalion via AP)

Putin spoke by phone Friday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who urged the Russian president to agree to an immediate cease-fire and called for an improvement to the humanitarian situation, a spokesman for Scholz said.

In a statement about the call, the Kremlin said Putin told the German chancellor that Ukraine had “unrealistic proposals” and was dragging out negotiations. The Kremlin also said it was evacuating civilians and accused Ukraine of committing war crimes by shelling cities in the east.

Maj. Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, newly appointed Head of Kyiv Regional Military Administration, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. The newly appointed top military commander in charge of defending the region of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv says continuous fights with Russian troops are taking place but said the country’s forces are well positioned to defend the city. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

While details of Thursday’s talks were unknown, an official in Zelenskyy’s office told the AP that on Wednesday, the main subject discussed was whether Russian troops would remain in separatist regions in eastern Ukraine after the war and where the borders would be.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said Ukraine was insisting on the inclusion of one or more Western nuclear powers in the negotiations and on legally binding security guarantees for Ukraine.

In exchange, the official said, Ukraine was ready to discuss a neutral military status.

A cloud of smoke raises after an explosion in Lviv, western Ukraine, Friday, March 18, 2022. The mayor of Lviv says missiles struck near the city’s airport early Friday. (AP Photo)

Russia has demanded that NATO pledge never to admit Ukraine to the alliance or station forces there.

The fighting has led more than 3 million people to flee Ukraine, the U.N. estimates. The death toll remains unknown, though Ukraine has said thousands of civilians have died.

Associated Press writer Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and other AP journalists around the world contributed to this report.Source AP

By CARA ANNA

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