[1/4]Firefighters work at the site of an industrial warehouse damaged by a Russian drone strike during the Russian attack on Ukraine in Lviv, Ukraine, September 19, 2023. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Lviv region/Handout via Portal acquires license rights
KYIV, Sept 19 (Portal) – Russia attacked three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, sparking a major fire and killing at least one person, local officials said.
Lviv Governor Maxim Kozitsky said firefighters were battling the blaze and a 26-year-old man was taken to hospital. The city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, later said that the body of a man who worked in one of the warehouses was found among the rubble.
Rescue workers said the fire had spread over an area of 9,450 square meters (11,300 square yards) after an attack at around 5 a.m. (0200 GMT).
“I would like to emphasize that these are ordinary industrial warehouses. Nothing military was stored there,” Kozitsky said on the messaging app Telegram.
He said Russian forces launched 18 drones in the attack and 15 were shot down, including seven that were directly over the Lviv region.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired a total of 30 drones and an Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight and that 27 of the drones were shot down.
Portal could not independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has carried out frequent air strikes on Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russia has repeatedly attacked infrastructure critical to Ukraine’s defense, energy system and agriculture, but it has also killed many civilians. At least seven people were killed in July when a Russian missile hit a residential building in Lviv, far from the front lines.
Moscow denied carrying out targeted attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; additional reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; Edited by Christopher Cushing, Michael Perry and Timothy Heritage
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