Russian Federation (RF) aircraft on Sunday launched a massive and deadly air strike against a Ukraine Army/Nato training center near Lviv, killing nine and injuring 57, a Ukraine Armed Forces (UAF)spokesman said.
Russian planes fired “at least” 30 cruise missiles at the Yavoriv International Center for Peacekeeping & Security (YICPS), ruining buildings and infrastructure. An army spokesman said the site was “purely military” and said he was not aware of civilian injuries.
The YICPS is a Ukrainian army facility with many facilities financed by Nato states. A primary mission of the facility is training UAF troops to Nato standards. A team of Ukrainian and US, British, Canadian and Lithuanian service members normally constitute the training staff. The international trainers were evacuated before the war started.
Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Defense Minister, called the strike a “terrorist attack” and called on western nations to create a no-fly zone in Ukrainian air space, to prevent RF aircraft and missile strikes. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior members of the Ukrainian government have begged for more than a week for the no-fly zone, saying that most RF strikes are aimed at civilian homes and businesses.
Ukrainian conventional and social media has overwhelmingly documented that, in the course of Ukraine’s now 18-day war with Russia, have RF artillery and air strikes hit purely military targets only rarely.
Nato officials led by Secretary Jen Stoltenberg had repeatedly rejected the idea of a no-fly zone, arguing it would place Nato aircraft in a potentially shooting situation against RF aircraft invading Ukrainian air space.
The Yavoriv attack one day after a senior RF diplomat warned the United States and Nato that weapons and other military support sent by the Atlantic Alliance to Ukraine by truck convoy would become legitimate targets for RF armed forces strikes.
In a Saturday evening statement widely reported by Ukrainian media, Stoltenberg said that “if even one shell, even one bullet hits the convoy delivering materials to Ukraine, it will be considered a violation of Article 5 (of the Nato mutual defense treaty).”
Article 5 commits all Nato members to mutual self defense if one member is attacked. The implication of Stoltenberg’s statement is that an attack by RF forces on a Nato convoy could start a shooting war between the RF and Nato.
Oleksy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s National Security Council, in a Sunday morning statement confirmed Stoltenberg’s warning to the RF, but expressed caution about the Atlantic Alliance’s real willingness to live up to the Nato Secretary’s tough words.
“We’ll see, if it happens (RF attack on a Nato arms convoy), how they (Nato) will react to it,” Danilov said.
