Explosions rocked the western Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Ternopil on Wednesday, Ukrainian media and a Reuters witness reported, after Ukraine’s military reported Russian missile and drone attacks.
“Russia is once again attacking our energy infrastructure,” Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on the Telegram messaging app. “Emergency power outages have been introduced in a number of regions of Ukraine.”
The full extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Ukrainian state media reported that a multi-storey residential building had been hit in Ternopil, while a Reuters witness reported power disruptions in Lviv during the attack.
Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram that the attack damaged an energy facility and hit an industrial site in Lviv region but caused no casualties, without providing further details.
Images shared on Ukrainian news-monitoring Telegram channels showed a tower block in Ternopil with its upper floors torn away beneath a towering column of black smoke, an orange glow of fire still burning through the haze.
Poland, a NATO member bordering western Ukraine, has temporarily closed Rzeszow and Lublin airports in the southeast of the country and scrambled Polish and allied aircraft as a precaution to safeguard its airspace.
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