Seven dead in Lviv in fresh wave of strikes on Ukraine

The strike came as Ukraine was still reeling from the deaths of at least 50 people at a military institute in the central city of Poltava on Tuesday.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy said Russia had attacked with drones and hypersonic missiles early on Wednesday. Among those killed were a baby and two girls aged nine and 14 as well as a woman working as a midwife in the city, officials said.

Explosions were also heard over the capital Kyiv as air defences targeted Russian missiles.

Dozens of buildings were damaged in the heart of Lviv

Meanwhile, five people were wounded when a hotel was hit and nearby blocks of damaged in the city of Kryvyy Rih, according to officials. "Thank God everyone is alive now," said mayor Oleksandr Vilkul.

The Ukrainian military said the whole country has been placed under an air alert.

Dozens of people were also wounded in Lviv and Mr Sadovy said more than 50 buildings in the heart of the city had been damaged, including homes, schools and clinics.

Rescue workers are continuing to search through the rubble of a military institute in Poltava for survivors of Tuesday's attack.

Mykyta Petrov, a 26-year-old cadet who only started at the Poltava Military Communications Institute two weeks ago, said two missiles hit shortly after 09:00 (06:00 GMT) on Tuesday, the second detonating just three seconds after the first.

“I ran outside, there was smoke and dust everywhere…lots of people were outside having a cigarette, and many were killed."

The cadet said there was “too much blood, too many dead bodies", and what he had seen had affected him psychologically.

An air raid siren had gone off two minutes earlier, but had not given people enough time to reach bomb shelters.

"You just imagine you're on the sixth floor of some building and you need to run away downstairs. Is it realistic that you can do this in two minutes?" Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko told the BBC.

President Volodymyr Zelensky promised that what he called "Russian scum" would pay for the attack, and repeated calls for more air defences so Ukraine could protect itself by carrying out its own long-range missile attacks.

In a statement confirming the deaths of military personnel, Ukraine's land forces said an investigation was under way to establish whether enough was done to protect those in the facility the missile hit.

Poltava regional governor Philip Pronin called the attack a "cunning and cynical Russian strike," and later said 15 people were still thought to be trapped under the rubble.

The attack on Lviv in the far west of Ukraine came as all of Ukraine was under air raid alert. Witnesses said the city was targeted at about 05:40 (02:40 GMT) and the mayor said later it had been hit by Kinzhal missiles as well as drones.

Mr Sadovy said some buildings were struck near the railway station and Lviv regional administration head Maksym Kozytskyi said residential buildings had been damaged in the attack.

Lviv has largely been spared the worst of the fighting over the two and a half years of war, but last week, Russian strikes targeted its energy infrastructure causing outages, according to officials.

Mr Zelensky is due to meet the Irish premier on Wednesday as Ireland prepares to announce new funding for Ukraine's war effort.

The Taoiseach will also announce €43m (£36 million) in aid to Ukraine, comprising a new allocation of €3m (£30 million) to partner organisations through its development body Irish Aid.

The Irish Government said the package will provide essential humanitarian assistance, support rehabilitation and eventual reconstruction, and contribute to Ukraine's longer-term goals.

-BBC