MOSCOW: Russian air strikes hit two western regions of Ukraine bordering NATO member Poland and other areas on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding more than a dozen, Ukrainian officials said.
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 northwestern region of Volyn. Officials said an industrial enterprise in the regional capital Lutsk was struck in the overnight attack. Several people were also hospitalized, Governor Yuriy Pohulyaiko said.
Fifteen people were also wounded in the Lviv region, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said. Six missiles damaged dozens of buildings and a kindergarten playground in and around the regional capital. Kozytskyi said the youngest victim was 10-years-old.
Both Volyn and Lviv border NATO member Poland and are hundreds of miles from the front line, where Ukraine’s military is fending off Russian troops in the nearly 18-month-old war.
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 center.
The city has generally been seen as a safe haven from the conflict, with some government offices moving there and international NGOs using it as a base. It has also been a transit point for Ukrainian refugees en route to Poland and beyond.
“These are the parts of the country where millions of people are seeking safety and refuge after fleeing the horrors of Russia’s invasion,” Denise Brown, the United Nations resident coordinator in Ukraine, said in a statement.
“Russia’s persistent attacks hitting essential infrastructure in populated areas cause immense human suffering.”
At least two people were also wounded in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where Governor Serhiy Lysak said a business enterprise and a sports complex had been hit.
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said civilian infrastructure including schools and a hospital had been 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.
“The daily terror of the Russians has a single goal: to break us, our spirit for fighting,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, wrote on Telegram. “This will not happen.”
Russia air strikes target western Ukraine, three killed
https://arab.news/j5dz8
Russia air strikes target western Ukraine, three killed
- Attack was the largest air assault on the Lviv region since the start of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine
EU parliament approves 90-bn-euro loan for Ukraine amid US cuts
- awmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027
The EU parliament on Wednesday approved a 90-billion-euro loan for Ukraine, providing a financial lifeline to cash-strapped Kyiv four years into Russia’s invasion.
Lawmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027 and backed by the EU’s common budget — after plans to tap frozen Russian central bank assets fell by the wayside.
Military aid to Ukraine hit its lowest level in 2025 as the US pulled funding, leaving Europe almost alone in footing the bill and averting a complete collapse, the Kiel Institute said Wednesday.
Kyiv's allies allocated 36 billion euros ($42.9 billion) in military aid in 2025, down 14 percent from 41.1 billion euros the previous year, according to Kiel, which tracks military, financial and humanitarian assistance pledged and delivered to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion.
Military aid in 2025 was even lower than in 2022, despite the invasion not taking place until February 24 that year.
US aid came to a complete halt with President Donald Trump's return to the White House in early 2025.
Washington provided roughly half of all military assistance between 2022 and 2024.
European countries have thus made a significant effort to plug the gap, increasing their collective allocation by 67 percent in 2025 compared with the 2022-2024 average.
Without that effort, the US cuts could have been even more damaging, the institute argued.
However, the think tank points to "growing disparities" among European contributors, with Northern and Western European countries accounting for around 95 percent of military aid.
The institute calculated that Northern European countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden) provided 33 percent of European military aid in 2025, despite accounting for only eight percent of the combined GDP of European donor countries.
Southern Europe, which accounts for 19 percent of the combined GDP of European donors, contributed just three percent.
To help fill the gap left by the United States, NATO launched the PURL programme, under which European donors purchased US weapons for Ukraine, worth 3.7 billion euros in 2025.
Kiel called the initiative a "notable development", which had enabled the acquisition of Patriot air-defense batteries and HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems.
European allies are also increasingly placing orders with Ukraine's own defence industry, following a trend started by Denmark in 2024.
War-torn Ukraine's defence production capacity has "grown by a factor of 35" since 2022, according to Kiel, but Kyiv lacks the funds to procure enough weapons to keep its factories working at full capacity.
Orders from 11 European donor countries helped bridge that gap last year.
In the second half of 2025, 22 percent of weapons purchases for Ukraine were procured domestically, a record high.
