KYIV – Russian air strikes hit two western regions of Ukraine bordering Nato member Poland and other areas on Tuesday, killing three people in a factory and wounding more than a dozen.

Local media said the attacks were the largest air assault on the Lviv region since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

The fatalities were reported in the north-western region of Volyn. Officials said an industrial enterprise in the regional capital Lutsk was struck in the overnight attack. Several people were also hospitalised, Governor Yuriy Pohulyaiko said.

Swedish industrial bearings maker SKF said its factory in Lutsk was hit by a missile overnight, killing three employees.

Fifteen people were also wounded in Lviv, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said. Six missiles damaged dozens of buildings and a kindergarten playground in and around the regional capital. The youngest victim was 10 years old.

Both Volyn and Lviv border Poland and are hundreds of kilometres from the front line, where Ukraine’s military is fending off Russian troops in the nearly 18-month-old war.

“The children are very scared. They were hysterical, they were shaking. One of them even vomited from fear,” said Lviv resident Dmytro Ivaschyshyn outside an apartment block as firemen dug through debris.

“Thank God we are all alive.”

Lviv city had been spared much of Russia’s air attacks until July, when seven people were killed by a missile that slammed into a residential building near the historic centre.

The city has generally been seen as a safe haven from the conflict, with some government offices moving there and international non-governmental organisations using it as a base. It has also been a transit point for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict to Poland and beyond.

“The daily terror of the Russians has a single goal: to break us, our spirit for fighting,” Mr Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, wrote on Telegram. “This will not happen.”

At least two people were also wounded in Dnipro in central Ukraine, where Governor Serhiy Lysak said a business enterprise and a sports complex were hit.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said civilian infrastructure, including schools and a hospital, were damaged in a total of eight regions in Tuesday’s attacks, which the air force said involved at least 28 cruise missiles.

Sixteen missiles were shot down, the air force said, and no other casualties were immediately reported. REUTERS