Russia launched a major air attack using cruise missiles on western Ukraine early on August 15, with officials reporting at least three people dead and many others injured.
Ukraine's Air Force said it shot down 16 of the 28 cruise missiles launched from both air and sea, but it appeared as though some got through and hit areas in the Lviv and Volyn regions, which lie near the border with NATO member Poland.
Yuriy Pohulyaiko, the governor the Volyn region, said in a post on Facebook that three people were killed in the town of Lutsk in the attack, while officials said there were no casualties reported in Lviv, though some residential buildings were on fire. It was not clear whether the buildings were hit directly by incoming missiles or were damaged by debris after the missiles were knocked out of the sky by defense systems.
"Many missiles were shot down, but there were also hits in Lviv," Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on Telegram.
Lviv, far from the front lines of eastern and southern Ukraine where fighting has raged since the early part of Russia's full-scale invasion was launched in February 2022, has been a center for many Ukrainians who fled other parts of the country during the war.
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskiy said the attacks at around 5:30 a.m. local time injured 15 people, including a 10-year-old boy, but no fatalities were reported. One of the missiles hit a kindergarten, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Russia's constant strikes on civil infrastructure had a single goal: "to break us, our spirit for fighting."
"This will not happen," he said, adding that a separate strike overnight on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro that hit a sports complex was another piece of evidence showing why Russian athletes should be banned from competing in international competitions, "even under a neutral flag."
Officials say Ukraine's counteroffensive continues to make incremental gains as the international community watches intently and mulls further moves to bolster Kyiv's military strength.
Zelenskiy on August 15 made a trip to the Zaporizhzhya region to meet with commanders of the the Ukrainian military's Tavria unit, which has been fighting in the area around the southeastern city of Melitopol.
Zelenskiy met with the commander of the Tavria unit, Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, and visited the locations of a number of brigades, the president's office said. He heard the commanders' reports on the progress of the fighting and they discussed the units' most problematic issues.
The military emphasized the need for frontline air-defense systems to counter enemy aircraft and drones. There is also a need in general for more drones, which are quickly destroyed in offensive operations.
Over the weekend, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner paid a surprise visit to Kyiv on August 14, saying that his country stood "shoulder to shoulder" with Ukraine.
Lindner, who arrived by train on August 14, said he would hold "very concrete" talks with Ukrainian officials, adding that Germany has given Ukraine some 22 billion euros ($24 billion) in humanitarian, financial, and military aid since the start of the war.
Berlin is under growing pressure from Ukraine to send long-range Taurus cruise missiles.
The United States said on August 14 that it was sending another $200 million in security assistance to Ukraine, including additional munitions for Patriot air-defense systems and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
In a sign of increased global tensions, the Dutch and British militaries said they scrambled fighter jets on August 14 when Russian warplanes were tracked flying in international airspace but toward the airspace of the Netherlands and Scotland before turning back.
