Russian strike on Ukraine's historic Lviv kills seven

A Russian strike on the historic centre of Lviv in western Ukraine has killed seven people including three children, officials said Wednesday, a day after a particularly bloody attack in the central city of Poltava in which dozens died.

Moscow has stepped up its aerial attacks after Ukraine's offensive in Russia's Kursk region, which caught Russian troops by surprise.

The overnight attacks triggered renewed calls from Ukrainian officials for Western partners to provide air defence, as well as long-range weapons to retaliate by striking targets deep inside Russia.

"In total, seven people died in Lviv, including three children," Internal Affairs Minister Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram, upping the previously reported toll.

He said search and rescue operations were still going on in Lviv, a western city near the Polish border that has largely been spared over the last two and a half years of war.

Sirens rang out over Lviv before sunrise on Wednesday, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy, who advised people to take shelter as air defences worked to down a barrage of missiles.

The missile attack wounded 40 people, the prosecutor's office said, damaging schools and medical facilities as well as buildings in the city's historic centre.

'Inhuman screams'

"I heard terrible inhuman screams saying 'Save us'," said Yelyzaveta, a 27-year-old resident of Lviv who rushed to shelter in her basement.

Others like Anastasia Grynko, an internally displaced person from Dnipro, did not have time to reach a shelter.

"The rocket hit our house. Everything was blown away. At the time of the explosion, I was somehow miraculously in the corridor, so I was not badly hurt," she said.

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