Moment Russian drone wave hits Lviv destroying UNESCO church | News World

Vladimir Putin’s spring offensive into Ukraine is underway after a huge barrage of drones struck civilian areas, killing six people including a child.

At least 46 people were injured in the rare daylight attack that struck a UNESCO world heritage site in Lviv, officials said.

It comes as Moscow’s army stepped up efforts to break through Ukrainian frontline defences by firing almost 400 long-range drones at Ukraine overnight in its biggest attack in weeks.

The onslaught continued into Tuesday morning as dozens of drones targeted the capital Kyiv during daylight.

Russia launched swarms of Iranian-designed Shahed drones, hitting at least seven cities, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.

Daytime strikes injured 13 people, including three children, in the central Ukraine city of Dnipro, and another daylight attack hit an apartment block in the centre of the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border, where 13 people were injured, regional officials said.

The Lviv attack set fire to the city’s 17th-century St Andrew’s Church, which is part of a Unesco World Heritage Site, prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

In the central city of Ivano-Frankivsk, the attack damaged maternity hospitals and about 10 apartment buildings, according to Svitlana Onyshchuk, the head of the regional military administration.

Two people were killed and four injured, including a six-year-old child, she said.

Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless barrages since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour more than four years ago.

US-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the past year have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s offer of a ceasefire, and in recent weeks the Iran war has diverted international attention from Ukraine’s plight.

On the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, the short-handed defenders have been bracing for a new offensive by Russia’s bigger army as the weather improves.

The commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Russian troops in recent days have made simultaneous attempts to break through defensive lines in several strategic areas.

‘Fierce fighting unfolded along the entire line of contact,’ Gen Syrskyi said on Monday on the Telegram messaging app, with Russia launching 619 attacks in four days.

‘The occupiers are attempting to bring up new units and are preparing to continue attacks’, Gen Syrskyi said, adding that Ukraine had deployed reinforcements to counter the assaults.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said Gen Syrskyi’s report backed up its assessment that Russia’s spring-summer offensive is now underway.

Russia has escalated its strikes since March 17 and has moved heavy equipment and more troops to the front line, the ISW said late on Monday.

Each year, as the weather improves, Russia has moved its grinding war of attrition up a gear.

However, it has been unable to capture cities and has made only incremental gains across rural areas.

Russia occupies about 20% of Ukraine.

That includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.

Ukraine has developed advanced drone technology to make up for its shortage of infantry.

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