A few days ago, the local authorities of Lviv, 50 miles from the border with Poland and a safe haven for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Ukrainians, ordered dozens of statues to be wrapped in padding to protect them from Russian attacks. Despite being so far untouched by the bombings, the 700,000 inhabitants of this magnificent Unesco world heritage site knew that, at some point, the time would also come for them.
So when last Friday the cities of Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, about 130kmaway, were targeted by Russian forces in one of the military attacks located closest to the west since the beginning of the war, it came as no surprise.
