LVIV: Russia has widened the ambit of its assault by firing up to 30 cruise missiles at a military training base, just 12 miles from the border of Poland, thus bringing the war to the doorstep of NATO. (Poland happens to be a member of the western military alliance).
The air base was used by NATO instructors to train Ukrainian military personnel and ferry weapons. The facility has also hosted international NATO drills. Poland, in turn, has been the main transit point for Ukrainian refugees fleeing to the West, and for arms shipments and foreign fighters traveling in the other direction, into Ukraine. The attack on Sunday followed a Russian threat to directly attack the weapons shipments from Ukraine’s Western allies, labelling them “legitimate targets.”
A UK politician, Michael Gove, called the rocket attack a 'significant escalation', adding that Putin was 'pushing the boundaries'.
Earlier in the day, as Russian forces stepped up their bombardments of Ukrainian cities, the White House announced it was sending an additional $200 million in arms and equipment to help Ukraine, defying Moscow. In the coming weeks, NATO, which has vowed to defend allied countries from any incursion by Russian forces, plans to gather 30,000 troops from 25 countries in Europe and North America in Norway to conduct live-fire drills and other cold-weather military exercises.
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Five hours after the attack, the fires at the Yavoriv military base were still raging Photos emanating from ground zero showed the facility in ruins, with wounded service personnel being attended to by medics.
Explosions at the base could be seen and heard from the outskirts of Lviv, nearly 30 miles away. Ukrainian air defense systems intercepted 22 of the 30 missiles, according to officials, but others struck the base. Until February, American forces were at the base as part of a NATO mission focused on training the Ukrainian army. They withdrew days before the invasion.
Later, on Sunday, Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, appealed directly to allies in a Facebook post, calling on them to “close the skies of Europe.” “Joe Biden, Jens Stoltenberg, do you understand that war is closer than you imagine?” he wrote. “Russia is already on your border.”
Russian fighters also fired missiles at the airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine located 250 km (155.34 miles) from Ukraine's border with Slovakia and Hungary.
