LVIV, Ukraine — Bringing the war closer to NATO territory, Russian fighter jets fired dozens of cruise missiles Sunday at a Ukrainian military training base near the border with Poland, killing at least 35 people, injuring 134 others and rattling nerves in western Ukraine’s largest city.
Ukraine said its air defenses downed most of the incoming missiles aimed at the base in the town of Yavoriv, known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center. But at least eight hit the facility, igniting fires that raged for hours and setting off an intense search-and-rescue effort, said Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional administration, who confirmed the death toll.
The targeted base, some 11 miles from the Polish border and 26 miles northwest of Lviv, was used before the war for training of Ukrainian troops by NATO forces, and is now a logistical hub and training center for arriving foreign volunteers. Its proximity to the frontier raises the specter that Russia may seek to block a crucial artery for both humanitarian supplies and shipments of weaponry.
Russia said Saturday it would consider Western weapons shipments to Ukraine a “legitimate target,” though without suggesting it would strike outside Ukraine’s border.
Air raid sirens wailed Sunday in Lviv, which has become a refuge and a transit point for those seeking to escape spiraling bombardment in the country’s north, south and east. In the city, largely spared so far from carnage elsewhere, the sirens sent some residents scurrying back to their homes or to other shelter, while many continued taking their morning coffee or walking about on the cobblestone streets of the city center.
Ukrainian authorities blocked entry to Yavoriv, but many of the wounded were hospitalized in the nearby town of Novoyavorivsk, where a steady stream of ambulances arrived.
On the war’s 18th day, the strike on the base came against the backdrop of a devastating Russian assault on Ukrainian cities and towns, which has brought invading forces closer to the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, and caused a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged southern port of Mariupol. Authorities in Mariupol have been burying bodies in mass graves, and residents reported boiling water from puddles to drink.
Ukrainian authorities on Sunday reported the death of an American photojournalist, Brent Renaud, in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has been the scene of intensive Russian bombardment. Another journalist who was with him was wounded, they said.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said Renaud “paid with his life” for documenting the suffering caused by the invasion.
With a Russian armored column only about 15 miles from Kyiv, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said a full-scale assault could come at any time. But Ukrainian officials say the Russians’ failure to breach the city more than two weeks after invading on Feb. 24 points to disorganization and poor planning on Russia’s part — and their own fierce determination to defend the capital.
“It’s not secret that the goal, the target, is Kyiv,” Klitschko told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, adding that Ukrainian defenders “destroyed the plans of Russians.”
“We defend our city, and right now, huge, huge patriotic waves, because people — who never, ever expect to — take weapons in hand right now to defend houses, children and our future — future of our country,” he said.
In the southern city of Mykolaiv, nine civilians were killed in a Russian airstrike Sunday, the regional governor, Vitaliy Kim, said in a video address. The Black Sea port has been under attack as Russia aims to seize Ukraine’s seacoasts to block vital maritime access.
The fighting has galvanized an enormous refugee exodus, with more than 2.6 million people, mainly women and children, fleeing to neighboring countries. More than 1.5 million have arrived in Poland alone, which has appealed for more international help in caring for them.
The latest diplomatic efforts to stem the Russian onslaught again resulted in failure. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz both spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reported no progress. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce future attempts to join NATO, demilitarize and acknowledge Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has rallied compatriots in staging a fierce resistance to the Russian invasion, declared in his latest video address that Ukraine would ultimately prevail.
“Ukraine will stand this test,” he said Saturday evening. “We need time and strength to break the war machine that has come to our land.”
In western Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Ruslan Martinsiv said in a Facebook post that Russian missiles had targeted the city airport for a third time.
“I remind you that the goal of the enemy is to sow panic and fear,” he wrote.
The strikes point to a growing offensive in Ukraine’s west, a part of the country that had mostly been spared the devastation seen elsewhere. Last week, Russian forces struck Lutsk airport, roughly 70 miles from the Polish border.
Sunday’s strike on the military base prompted warnings from Ukrainian officials about the potential for the conflict spilling over into the territory of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional administration, wrote on a Telegram channel that bombardment “is approaching the borders of NATO countries.”
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi directly addressed President Biden and the NATO chief in warning of prospects for a spillover. “Joe Biden, Jens Stoltenberg, do you understand that war is closer than you imagine?” he wrote on Facebook. “Russia is already on your border.”
NATO forces are not involved in fighting inside Ukraine, and the Biden administration is resolutely avoiding steps that could spark direct confrontation with Russian forces, such as a no-fly zone that Zelenskyy has repeatedly pleaded be created.
But in light of the fighting moving close to the Polish border, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, was asked in a television interview Sunday what would happen if there were an errant Russian strike inside a NATO country bordering Ukraine.
“All I will say is that if Russia attacks, fires upon, takes a shot at NATO territory, the NATO alliance would respond to that,” Sullivan said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
In an ominous sign of how Russia intends to deal with areas that fall under its control, Russia appointed an “acting” mayor in the southern city of Melitopol, to replace the city’s defiantly anti-occupation mayor, Ivan Fyodorov, who was arrested and taken away last week after helping to organize protests against the invasion.
The Russian appointee, Galyna Danylchenko, issued a video statement Sunday telling residents of the city that they needed to adjust to “the new reality” of Russian occupation.
Sunday brought a new peace appeal from Pope Francis, who has called for an immediate halt to the Russian invasion.
“In the name of God, let the cry of the suffering people be heard, and let the bombings and attacks stop,” the pontiff said, addressing crowds assembled in St. Peter’s Square. “In the name of God, I ask you, stop this massacre.”
Faced with the prospect of a drawn-out conflict, Ukrainian officials voiced concern about basic supplies. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said in an address on Saturday that the government has restricted export of “food-critical goods” including wheat, eggs, oil and sugar.
“Currently, the balance shows that Ukraine is provided with basic foodstuffs in the coming months,” he said. “But we must also think about the future.”
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(McDonnell reported from Lviv, Bulos from Kyiv and King from Washington.)
