Russia denounces Biden’s ‘butcher’ comment: Rockets strike Lviv in western Ukraine

On Saturday, rockets struck Lviv, a city in western Ukraine, for the first time since Russia’s invasion. The incident came on the same day that Russian forces captured the town of Chernobyl workers. The Ukraine conflict shows no signs of letting up as fighting is raging in various parts of the country. US President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘butcher’ on Saturday.

It has been reported that the Kremlin said such comments would harm prospects for mending US-Russian relations. Russia has not yet taken control of any major Ukrainian cities after more than four weeks of fighting. According to the United Nations, the conflict has killed thousands of people, forced nearly 3.8 million Ukrainians abroad and displaced more than half of Ukraine’s children.

As Moscow downsized its military ambitions on Friday, it is focusing on the territory claimed by Russian-backed separatists in the east. But two rockets hit the outskirts of Lviv, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) from the Polish border, a city that has so far escaped the bombardment and fighting that have devastated other Ukrainian cities closer to Russia.

Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said five people had been wounded after three blasts mid-afternoon. Witnesses reported seeing black smoke coming from northeast Lviv and Lviv’s mayor said an oil storage facility had been hit. Slavutych, a town near the Chernobyl plant, was seized by Russian forces, the regional governor reported. Residents who had unfurled a large Ukrainian flag and yelled ‘Glory to Ukraine’ in protest were fired upon and stun grenades were thrown to disperse them. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

Slavutych lies just outside Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, where the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 occurred. Since the Chernobyl plant was seized by Russian forces shortly after the invasion began on Feb. 24, Ukrainian staff has continued to work there. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed alarm over the situation if workers cannot rotate.