On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, Ukraine experienced two nearly simultaneous strikes overnight. A massive attack by drones and missiles on key regions of the country claimed the lives of several civilians. Concurrently, in the center of Lviv, explosive devices were detonated in an ambush, directly targeting patrolling police officers. The gravity of the night's events near NATO borders forced a temporary increase in the combat readiness of the Polish Air Force.

Tragic Ambush in Lviv

The detonation of improvised explosive devices led to the fatal injury of a policewoman and injuries to several dozen people following a night-time alarm report to the regional response team.

Russian Aerial Pacifism

The phenomenon of intensified aerial operations, utilizing nearly 350 combat units of various distribution, damaged national administrative areas, taking the lives of civilians from over a dozen separate cities.

Operational Airport Closures

The geographical proximity of the ongoing destruction forced activity by Polish combat pilots, manifested, among other things, by an ad-hoc suspension of scheduled passenger and cargo flights from Lublin region land ports.

Overnight from Saturday to Sunday, Ukrainian citizens experienced a double blow: a massive Russian aerial bombardment and a tragically consequential act of terror in the west of the country. In Lviv, several dozen minutes after midnight, local services received a report of an alleged "break-in" at a store in the downtown area. When the first police patrol arrived on the scene, there was a sudden detonation of an improvised explosive device. Shortly thereafter, upon the arrival of regional emergency support, a second explosion occurred.

A 23-year-old policewoman lost her life, and the final number of injured persons rose to at least 25 victims. Some of the rescued victims were in extremely critical condition. The noted absence of air raid sirens in central Lviv starkly confirmed the local nature of the brutal sabotage, which involved the perpetrators setting a classic ambush for law enforcement officers. The relevant Lviv Regional Prosecutor's Office immediately launched an official investigation into the background of the planned attack.

Timeline of Night Events in Lviv: February 21, late evening — False Report; February 22, after midnight — First Explosion; February 22, during the night — Second Explosion

Saturday night marks one of the most serious cases of direct use of urban explosive devices targeting Ukrainian stationary law enforcement services in central Lviv since the brutal beginning of the full-scale conflict in 2022. Until now, Lviv territory had primarily grappled with remote waves of falling missile wreckage sent from beyond the eastern borders of the country's defense.

Parallel to the western terrorist drama, loud sirens related to a powerful initiative by Russian forces wailed across almost the entire country. The country's president declared in a Tuesday manifesto that combined Kremlin forces launched nearly three hundred unmanned aerial vehicles supported by a broad volume of several dozen destructive missiles. The night raids brutally attacked civilian residential areas in Dnipro and Kyiv, significantly damaging the sleepy economic hubs of the regional capitals.

Main Russian Equipment Used in the Attack on Ukrainian Territory: Shahed-type attack drones: 297, Various rocket missiles: 50

33 — ballistic and maneuvering missiles successfully intercepted across the entire country

Defense services recorded further civilian tragedies, including the death of residents in the capital's outskirts and the destruction of a building in the complex of the American company Mondelēz in Trostianets; although there were no casualties in the plant itself, Russian attacks in the Sumy region killed four people that day. Asked about these shocking morning news, the mayor of the bloodied western Lwów bitterly expressed the exhaustion of the municipal self-governing community. He stated this with a decisive assessment of the widely painful media outcry. „Це однозначно терористичний акт. У нас 15 людей отримують медичну допомогу. Дехто перебуває у дуже важкому стані.” (This is unequivocally a terrorist act. Fifteen people are receiving medical assistance. Some are in a very serious condition.) — Andriy Sadovyi Ultimately, in the face of a real escalation alarmingly close to Poland's eastern wall, national military command centers preemptively scrambled squadrons of duty fighter units to protect the border airspace ceiling. Aviation procedures resulted in the short-term, absolute grounding of passenger flights in eastern regions, with particular avoidance of passenger airports concentrated around the capitals of the Lublin and Podkarpackie regions, before the eventual cancellation of the national state of emergency.

Perspektywy mediów: Priority concentration of public debate and event assessment around the continuous human casualties and civilian brutality threatening local urban centers. Emphasis on the rigorous implications and immediate tactical phenomena conducted in night mode by the military staff with the sovereignty of the Polish airspace ceiling in mind.

Mentioned People

  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy — President of Ukraine, reporting on the progress of the Ukrainian defensive action based on fallen missiles from the vessels.
  • Andriy Sadovyi — Head of the regional Lviv presidential administration, officially confirming the occurrence of a territorial strike deep into the city.
  • Vitali Klitschko — Mayor of Kyiv, verifying in the morning the number of deceased capital civilians and reporting structural damage.