In a massive escalation, Russia has launched nearly 1,000 drones at Ukraine in the past day, marking one of its largest daytime offensives to date. This assault left at least eight people dead and struck the UNESCO heritage site in the heart of Lviv, Ukrainian officials reported on Tuesday.

The western city of Ivano-Frankivsk suffered a tragic drone strike that claimed two lives and damaged a maternity hospital. Additionally, in the central Vinnytsia region, another person lost their life as part of a coordinated attack that also targeted residential areas overnight, resulting in five more fatalities.

In Lviv, far from the active conflict zones, an AFP journalist witnessed flames engulfing a structure near the historic 17th-century St. Andrew’s Church and Bernardine Monastery, right in the bustling city center, during the evening rush.

Firefighters were seen battling the inferno at an apartment building, which had suffered extensive damage with its roof collapsed and windows shattered.

During the attack, first responders and local residents took refuge inside a church, waiting for the danger to pass before emerging back into the open.

A representative from Ukraine’s air force confirmed to AFP that this was among the largest-ever daytime assaults launched against Ukraine.

“On such a large scale, it’s basically the first time. I don’t recall there being such daytime strikes with this number of drones,” said the spokesman, Yuriy Ignat.

Russia fired 550 drones during the day on Tuesday, following 392 overnight, Ukraine’s air force said in a statement.

Moscow has typically fired its barrages overnight in the four-year war, which started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

‘More protection needed’: Zelenskyy

The daytime strikes on the centre of Ivano-Frankivsk killed two people and wounded four, including a six-year-old child, regional head Svitlana Onyshchuk said on social media.

Around 10 residential buildings and a maternity hospital were damaged, she said.

In the Vinnytsia region, one person was killed and 11 wounded, the regional head said.

In Lviv, at least 13 people were hospitalised.

Unverified video from the city shared widely on social media showed a drone careering down into a building near a church in the city centre, erupting into a ball of flames on impact.

Earlier, in Kyiv, AFP reporters saw locals — including a mother with her toddler — sheltering in the metro at lunchtime during a rare midday air alert.

The attacks came with Ukraine concerned that it could struggle to repel relentless Russian aerial strikes as its supplies of US air defence systems dwindle amid the war in the Middle East.

“These numbers clearly show that more protection is needed to save lives from Russian strikes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

A third round of US-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at ending Russia’s invasion has been derailed by the war in the Middle East.

Ukraine sent a delegation to the United States last weekend in a bid to revive the negotiation process, but the effort yielded no immediate result.

Kyiv has been seeking to trade its anti-drone technology and expertise for conventional air defence missiles, which it urgently needs, and has dispatched around 200 of its military experts to Gulf countries facing Iranian drone attacks.

Housing, infrastructure hit

Overnight, Russian missiles and drones rained down on residential areas and transport and energy infrastructure across Ukraine, local authorities said.

Five people were killed and dozens wounded in strikes across the central Poltava region, the eastern city of Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.

AFP reporters in Zaporizhzhia — repeatedly battered by Russian attacks — saw a fire raging across multiple floors in a high-rise residential block, windows and balconies blasted out and grey smoke bellowing from the building.

The nighttime attack also cut a key power line connecting neighbouring Moldova to Europe, forcing the country to declare a state of emergency.

Another power line to the southern Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was also cut, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported.

Russia has occupied large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine in a gruelling campaign that has forced millions of people to flee their homes.

In Russia, authorities in the western Kursk region said a Ukrainian strike on a farm had killed one person and wounded 13.

On the battlefield, Russia’s army said it had captured a Ukrainian village in the Kharkiv region.

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