Missiles cause multiple blasts in western Ukrainian’s Lviv

Kyiv: Multiple explosions believed to be caused by missiles struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early Monday as the country was bracing for an all-out Russian assault in the east.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to “fight absolutely to the end” in strategically vital Mariupol, meanwhile, where the ruined port city’s last known pocket of resistance was holed up in a sprawling steel plant laced with tunnels.

AP staff witnessed the explosions in Lviv, which has been less affected by the fighting than other parts of the country and was considered to be a relatively safe haven. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Facebook that five missiles struck the city and that emergency services were responding to the blasts. He said more details would follow.

With missiles and rockets battering various parts of the country, Zelenskyy accused Russian soldiers of torture and kidnappings in areas they control.

The fall of Mariupol, which has been reduced to rubble in a seven-week siege, would give Moscow its biggest victory of the war. But a few thousand fighters, by Russia’s estimate, were holding on to the giant, 11-square-kilometer (4-squaremile) Azovstal steel mill.

“We will fight absolutely to the end, to the win, in this war,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal vowed Sunday on ABC’s ‘This Week’. He said Ukraine is prepared to end the war through diplomacy if possible, “but we do not have intention to surrender.”

Many Mariupol civilians, including children, are also sheltering at the Azovstal plant, Mikhail Vershinin, head of the city’s patrol police, told Mariupol television. He said they are hiding from Russian shelling and from Russian soldiers.

Capturing the city on the Sea of Azov would free Russian troops for a new offensive to take control of the Donbas region in Ukraine’s industrial east. Russia also would fully secure a land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, depriving Ukraine of a major port and prized industrial assets.

Russia is bent on capturing the Donbas, where Moscowbacked separatists already control some territory, after its attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, failed. “We are doing everything to ensure the defense” of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation.

As for besieged Mariupol, there appeared to be little hope of military rescue. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the remaining Ukrainian troops and civilians there are basically encircled. He said they “continue their struggle,” but that the city effectively doesn’t exist anymore because of massive destruction.

The relentless bombardment and street fighting in Mariupol have killed at least 21,000 people, by Ukrainian estimates. A maternity hospital was hit by a lethal Russian airstrike in the opening weeks of the war, and about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theater where civilians had taken shelter. (AP)