At a hotel in western Ukraine that is home to several displaced families, a janitor sweeps shards of glass between washing machines and clotheslines after a Russian missile hits a nearby garage during breakfast.
According to local authorities, five Russian missiles landed on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Monday, leaving seven dead and eight wounded.
At least one missile hit a repair shop next to the hotel, across the train tracks in the western part of the city. In the backyard of the business, snowflakes were falling on a sea of broken glass.
A woman in her 70s said she arrived at the hotel a few weeks before she retired from the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.
“We had just finished our meal and were returning to our rooms when we heard the explosion,” he said without revealing his name.
Lviv has survived most of the bombings carried out by Russia elsewhere in the country since the invasion began on February 24.
The city and its environs have become a haven of relative peace for those fleeing conflicts in the east of the country.
On the first floor of the hotel, women and children were carrying their suitcases from room to room, waiting for new suggestions and whether to change seats.
Iryna said that when the sirens started sounding just before 8:00 am, some didn’t care because they believed the warnings in Lviv were not as serious as those in the areas they had fled.
A few hundred yards away, next to a burning tire shop, firefighters spotted a hole in the middle of the street with many charred cars lying around.
City officials dressed in orange vests were clearing debris on either side of the train tracks. Shortly after the second bomb alert ended, a train slowly passed under the rubble.
Passengers, including a child, watched the situation as journalists roamed the bombed area.
Across the street, Officer Orest Mazin waited for his colleagues’ family to arrive to inspect a silver Mercedes car.
“It was traveling along train tracks when the missile suddenly came and hit the trees,” he explained.
“It passed right in front of me,” he said, still in shock. “It went by so fast that I didn’t even hear the explosion,” he added.
source: Noticias