Russian missiles struck a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with Poland on March 13, killing at least 35 people and wounding 134, Ukrainian authorities said. The attack on the Yavoriv facility, located less than 15 miles from NATO territory, came after Russian officials warned they would target foreign weapon shipments flowing into Ukraine. The strike marked the westernmost point of Russia’s 18-day invasion and show Moscow’s determination to disrupt Western military aid.
More than 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the International Peacekeeping and Security Center near Yavoriv, according to Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi. He said most of the missiles “were shot down because the air defense system worked,” but those that got through caused heavy casualties.
The facility has long hosted Ukrainian military personnel and NATO instructors, including from the United States. It also served as a site for international NATO drills. NATO stated it currently has no personnel in Ukraine.
A NATO official did not respond to questions about when the alliance last had personnel at the training base. The attack followed Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov’s warning that sending equipment to bolster Ukraine’s military was “an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets.”
Humanitarian corridors open amid continued fighting
Ukrainian and European leaders pushed for safe passage for civilians trapped by the fighting. Ukrainian authorities said more than 10 humanitarian corridors would open with Russian agreement, including from the besieged port city of Mariupol, where officials said more than 1,500 people have been killed. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address that a convoy carrying 100 tons of humanitarian aid was on its way to Mariupol.
“All necessary diplomatic efforts have been taken to make sure it reaches those in need,” he said. Capturing Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of failing to honor previous pledges to withhold fire along temporary evacuation routes. Zelenskyy said authorities had evacuated nearly 125,000 people from areas with ongoing hostilities.
Strikes hit multiple cities across Ukraine
In the southern city of Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, authorities reported nine more people killed in bombings. Russian forces advancing from Crimea were attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv on what appeared to be a westward push toward the Black Sea port of Odesa. Russian fighters also fired at the airport in the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, less than 100 miles from Romania and 155 miles from Hungary, both NATO allies.
That airport had been targeted two days earlier. Ukrainian authorities said Russian airstrikes on a monastery and a children’s resort in the eastern Donetsk region hit spots where monks and refugees were sheltering, wounding 32 people.
Another airstrike hit a westward-bound train evacuating people from the east, killing one person and injuring another, Donetsk’s chief regional administrator said. In the northern city of Chernihiv, one person was killed and another injured in a Russian airstrike that destroyed a residential block.
Fighting intensifies around Kyiv
Around the capital, Kyiv, fighting intensified with overnight shelling in the northwestern suburbs and a missile strike that destroyed a warehouse to the east. In Irpin, a suburb about 12 miles northwest of central Kyiv, bodies lay out in the open on streets and in a park. Chief regional administrator Oleksiy Kuleba said Russian forces appeared to be trying to blockade and paralyze the capital with day and night shelling of the suburbs.
He said Russian agents were in the capital and its suburbs, marking out possible future targets. Kuleba vowed that any all-out assault would meet stiff resistance.
“We’re getting ready to defend Kyiv, and we’re prepared to fight for ourselves,” he said.
U.S. announces additional military aid
After talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire failed again on March 12, the United States announced plans to provide another $200 million to Ukraine for weapons. Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to break his country apart and starting “a new stage of terror” with the alleged detention of a mayor from a city west of Mariupol.
He also alleged that Russians were using blackmail and bribery to force local officials in the southern Kherson region to form a “pseudo-republic,” similar to those in two eastern regions where pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014. “Ukraine will stand this test.
We need time and strength to break the war machine that has come to our land,” Zelenskyy said during his nightly address to the nation. The attack on the Yavoriv base, combined with continued strikes across the country, demonstrated Russia’s willingness to expand the war westward while Ukrainian forces fought to hold the line around Kyiv and other key cities.
