LVIV, Ukraine, July 7 (Reuters) – Ukraine halted rescue operations in the western city of Lviv on Friday and said the death toll had risen to 10 from a Russian missile strike on a residential building.
Regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said rescuers had worked through the night to clear debris despite heavy rain after a missile hit the building on Thursday in what he called the biggest attack of the war on civilian infrastructure in Lviv.
The city is only 70 km (43 miles) from the border with Poland, a NATO and European Union member state, and is far for frontlines.
“As a result of yesterday’s rocket attack on an apartment building in Lviv, 10 people were killed. One person was found at night and one more this morning,” Kozytskyi said on the Telegram messaging app.
City officials declared two days of mourning in honour of the victims.
National police said that 45 people, including three children, had been injured. The attack damaged 35 residential houses, an office complex, a student campus, a school, and several dozens of cars, officials said.
Lviv was home to about 700,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The population has grown since then because many people have fled to Lviv from fighting and air strikes in other parts of Ukraine.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians but has frequently hit residential buildings in air strikes across Ukraine.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
((Olena.Harmash@thomsonreuters.com;))
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