While U.S. President Joe Biden was meeting with Ukrainian refugees and diplomats in Poland on March 26, Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Lviv, which is just over 30 miles from the Polish border. Local authorities recorded considerable damage caused to infrastructure facilities. But they added that residential buildings were not damaged.
When Biden began his speech a little later, sparing no quotations to describe the pain of Ukrainians fleeing the war and stating that Putin “cannot remain in power,” two more explosions were heard in Lviv.
Many people were hiding in bomb shelters during those hours. But many decided not to pay much attention to the air-raid alarms, which are heard here regularly, despite the fact that Lviv is not an often a target of the Russian military.
Black thick columns of smoke billowed over the city, which has become a temporary home to about a quarter of a million internally displaced people.
These were the third and fourth attacks on Lviv during Russia’s war against Ukraine that has now lasted for over a month.
The Russians struck two targets – an oil depot and a plant. In both cases there were two explosions. At least five people sought medical help. But there were no fatalities.
Mayor Andriy Sadovy went to a local school which was close to the explosions. “In one of the schools near the place of the airstrike, windows were smashed by a shock wave. There are no victims,” he tweeted afterward.
About an hour later, the third air-raid alarm of the day sounded. Some foreigners and Ukrainians thought it was Putin’s way of saying hello to the U.S. president, showing “concern” about his safety.
“Now in the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom, Ukraine and its people are on the front lines, fighting to save their nation, and their brave resistance is part of a larger fight for … essential democratic principles that unite all free people,” Biden said in Poland. He came to show his support for Ukraine, and its determined resistance against Russian aggression.
President Biden’s trip to a NATO emergency meeting and to Poland to discuss helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia must have rankled the Kremlin.
The summit took serious measure of NATO’s response in the event of a Russian nuclear attack or chemical attack on Ukraine. If it happened, the countries of the alliance would weigh their response on whether they considered the use of nuclear weapons as an attack only on Ukraine or an attack on NATO countries as well.
Biden also announced new financial assistance, and NATO accentuated its need to move away from Russian energy resources and adhere to sanctions.
Impressed by his meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Poland President Biden didn’t mince words and also called Putin a butcher. The Kremlin promptly reacted.
“Each time such personal insults narrow the window of opportunity for our bilateral relations under the current [U.S.] administration,” Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov retorted.
It was the first time Biden spoke emotionally about Putin. Earlier he called him a killer and a war criminal. He also expressed concern about the high possibility of chemical weapons usage by Russia in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the western city of Lviv was putting out fires that were visible from all corners of the city and far beyond, and hoping that, in view of these latest bombardments, the U.S. and Western partners will proceed to provide more air defense equipment.
