KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — Missile strikes on Monday killed seven people in Lviv, a western Ukrainian city once considered a relative safe haven, local officials said, as Russian forces pressed ahead with their drive to seize the strategic southern port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine has vowed that desperate defenders would fight to the end.
That pivotal battle is unfolding in the war’s eighth week as the country is also bracing for a full-scale Russian assault in the east that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was intended to “literally finish off and destroy” Ukraine’s industrial heartland.
In some eastern areas, the battle has already begun, albeit on a smaller scale. Russian troops pushed into the city of Kreminna, killing four people overnight, the Luhansk regional governor said Monday, adding that two more people were dead after shelling in the eastern city of Zolote.
