New Delhi: Air raid sirens blared on Saturday afternoon was followed by three powerful explosions in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, said governor of the region, Maxym Kozytsky, without giving any further details, reported news agency The Associated Press.
The explosion comes two weeks after the Russian forces had fired missiles on a military training centre near Lviv, killing 35 people.
Since the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine on February 24, Lviv has offered to be a safe harbour for some 2,00,000 displaced Ukrainians as the city has been largely spared from major Russian attacks in two weeks.
Biden Visits Poland
The explosion in Lviv comes soon after US President Joe Biden was concluding his visit to neighbouring NATO ally Poland.
In an intense criticism of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, Biden called Putin a “butcher” after meeting with refugees in Warsaw.
After Biden met with the refugees he said that “they are an amazing group of people.”
“Each one of those children said, 'Pray for my dad, my grandfather, my brother who is back there fighting.' I remember what it's like when you've someone in a war zone, every morning you get up & wonder...They're an amazing group of people,” reported Reuters.
He also told Poland's president, Andrzej Duda, that “your freedom is ours,” which was welcomed by the Polish president. He stressed that the assurance was all the more important as Russia is carrying out brutal assaults in Ukraine, just across Poland's eastern border.
I think that for us Poles, in the situation we have today, in our part of Europe, in the era of Russian aggression against Ukraine, this is a very important element, Duda said.