“Evacuation from there is already impossible,” he wrote to the Telegram early Monday morning. Luhansk residents were warned that this was their last chance to leave. Ukraine launched a counterattack on Sunday to cut off supply lines to Izyum, where Russia appears to be rallying troops for northern confidence in a siege of Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking and heavily industrialized region where the 2014 war broke out. The Russian military said Monday that its missiles had hit more than 20 military targets in eastern and central Ukraine in the past day as it stepped up its campaign to strike weapons factories, railways and other infrastructure targets before the attack. Residents of Vasylkiv, a city south of Kiev that hosts a military air base, reported a large explosion on Monday morning. Russian missiles also hit Lviv, killing at least seven people, according to Maksym Kozytsky, its governor. “At the moment we are able to confirm that seven people have lost their lives. We also know that 11 people have been injured. One of them is a child,” he said. “Three victims are in critical condition.” He confirmed that there had been four rocket attacks, three hitting military infrastructure and one at a tire shop.
