🔴 Live: Zelensky promises ‘tangible response’ after deadly strike on Lviv

Issued on: 06/07/2023 – 06:49Modified: 06/07/2023 – 07:00

7:35am: ‘Civilians are bearing the brunt of this war’

Russian missiles slammed into Lviv apartment blocks in the early hours of Thursday when most residents were asleep, giving them little chance of finding shelter, says FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze reporting from Kyiv.

“Once again a civilian infrastructure has been hit by Russian forces – this happens on a daily basis in Ukraine,” she explains.

6:45am: Zelensky vows tangible response after Lviv strike kills four

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed a “tangible response” following a Russian missile strike on an apartment block that killed at least four people in the western city of Lviv.

“Consequences of the night attack by Russian terrorists,” he wrote alongside a Telegram video post showing a ruined building. “Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead… There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A tangible one.”

5:15am: Fatalities reported after missile strike on apartment block Lviv

At least three people were killed in a Russian missile attack that hit an apartment building in Lviv overnight, the mayor of the western Ukrainian city has said.

“Three people have been killed,” Andriy Sadovyi said in a post on his Telegram channel, adding that about 60 apartments and 50 cars were damaged.

In an earlier post he had said eight people had been injured. It was unclear whether the three people he confirmed as dead were included in that number.

3:06am: Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s western city of Lviv

Strikes on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv damaged “critical infrastructure” and wounded at least four people early on Thursday, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Russia has launched waves of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine since its invasion in February 2022.

The Lviv region – hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines – has been spared the brunt of the attacks.

“A critical infrastructure facility in Lviv has been damaged, there are injured according to initial reports,” Lviv governor Maksym Kozytski wrote on Telegram.

He did not give further details or specify whether the strikes were from drones or missiles.

Earlier, he had warned that “several” missiles were “moving in the direction of the western regions”, citing Ukraine’s Air Forces Command.

1:30am: Zelensky says sought weapons for counteroffensive to start sooner

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN he wanted a counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces to have started sooner than it did in June and that he had urged Western allies to quicken the supply of weapons for that mission, according to excerpts via a translator released on Wednesday.

“I wanted our counteroffensive to happen much earlier, because everyone understood that if the counteroffensive unfolds later, then a bigger part of our territory will be mined,” Zelensky said. “We give our enemy the time and possibility to place more mines and prepare their defensive lines.”

He said difficulties in the battlefield had led to Ukrainian forces slowing down the counteroffensive, which is aimed at reclaiming territory in eastern and southern Ukraine seized by Russia since its February 2022 invasion began.

The Ukrainian leader has consistently pushed the United States and other Western allies to supply his armed forces with more sophisticated weaponry, such as US-made F-16 fighter jets and longer range missiles.

• Key developments from Wednesday, July 5:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday called for additional access to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine to “confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site”.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning to sabotage the site, raising alarm over risks of a radioactive disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear plant.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow is yet to decide whether to renew the Black Sea grain deal, which allows for the safe export of grain from Ukraine and is due to expire on July 18.

Russia opened a criminal case into a brutal attack by masked men in Chechnya on a prominent female Russian journalist and a lawyer as the serious nature of the injuries sustained in the assault became clearer.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)