WAR IN UKRAINE: March 18, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 23
Several missiles hit the aircraft repair plant in Lviv, next to the international airport early Friday morning just after 7am. Mayor Andriy Sadovy says buildings were destroyed by strikes but “active work of the plant was stopped in advance, so there are no casualties now.”
In an early afternoon press conference, the mayor said that, even though the strikes resulted in just one death, nowhere in the region can be considered safe. In all, 6 missiles were fired from Russian destroyers in the Black Sea, with the Ukrainian side saying it destroyed two.
The Lviv airport, named after the founder of the city, is just six kms from the centre and is the second busiest in Ukraine. Just 70kms from the Polish border.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS (contd)
Rescuers have freed 130 people from the basement of a Mariupol theatre but 1,300 remain trapped, Ukraine's human rights chief says. Hundreds of people were sheltering underground when the theatre was bombed by Russia on Wednesday, authorities there say (BBC).
The UN says that at least 816 civilians have been killed and 1,333 wounded in Ukraine through to 17 March. Most of the casualties were from explosive weapons such as shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes, according to the UN rights office (OHCHR).
In Kyiv, shelling in the Podilskyi district continued. Firefighters and rescue crews, though extremely stretched, are being described as heroes. Photo below…
