RUSSIA,UKRAINE,BELGIUM,: Russian rockets struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday while President Joe Biden visited neighboring Poland, a reminder that Moscow is willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine despite its claim to be focusing its offensive on the country’s east.
The back-to-back airstrikes shook the city that has become a haven for an estimated 2,00,000 people who have had to flee their hometowns. Lviv had been largely spared since the invasion began, although missiles struck an aircraft repair facility near the main airport a week ago.
The city was home to about 7,00,000 people before the invasion. Some who no longer feel safe here will head for nearby Poland. President Biden met there Saturday with refugees in a show of solidarity, though he was in the capital, Warsaw, and far from the Ukrainian border, which is only about 45 miles (72 kilometres) west of Lviv. Meanwhile, Russia said on Saturday it did not plan to call up reservists as Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine entered its 31st day, denouncing what it claimed were “false” summons to Russian men by Kyiv’s security services.
“The Russian Defence Ministry is not summoning and does not plan to summon any reservists to the military commissariats,” spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.
In the statement posted on messaging app Telegram, Konashenkov said that “many” Russian men had in recent days received “false” phone calls notifying them of their summons to the military commissariats.
“All such fake calls are made from Ukrainian territory,” Konashenkov said. “They absolutely do not correspond to reality and are a provocation of the Ukrainian special services.” Meanwhile, The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that there have been more than seventy separate attacks on hospitals, ambulances and doctors in Ukraine with the number increasing on a “daily basis”.
Since Russia first started its invasion on February 24, the WHO has reviewed and verified 72 separate attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine, causing at least 71 deaths and 37 injuries. According to WHO data, more than 300 health facilities are along conflict lines or in areas that Russia now controls and another 600 facilities are within ten kilometres of the conflict line.
- THE HINDU, THE MALAY MAIL,INDIA TODAY
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