Nine people have been killed after a Ukrainian military base used for NATO drills less than 15 miles from the Polish border was targeted in a Russian airstrike, the governor of the Lviv region has said.

Maksym Kozytskyy added 57 people were wounded after 30 rockets were fired at the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security in Yavoriv, in what appears to be the westernmost attack of the war so far.

Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov has said foreign military instructors work on the site in the Lviv region.

A defence ministry representative said they are still trying to establish if any of the instructors were at the facility at the time of the attack.

Reuters says a witness saw more than a dozen ambulances heading in the direction of the base.

Since 2015, the US has regularly sent instructors to the military base and the facility has also hosted international NATO drills.

The military training facility is the biggest in western Ukraine and is located less than 15 miles (25km) from the border with Poland, a member of NATO.

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“The occupiers launched an airstrike on the International Centre for Peacekeeping and Security. According to preliminary data, they fired eight missiles,” Anton Mironovich, spokesman for the Academy of Land Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, was quoted as saying by the Interfax Ukraine news agency.

Mr Mironovich did not clarify whether the military base was hit but said there were no deaths and that information on the wounded was being confirmed.

Key developments

The military base was targeted by Vladimir Putin’s forces a day after a Russian diplomat warned that Western shipments of military equipment to Ukraine could be “legitimate targets” for attacks.

The strike also come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Russian forces that they faced a fight to the death if they try to occupy the capital Kyiv, as air raid sirens again woke residents on Sunday morning.

“If they decide to carpet bomb and simply erase the history of this region… and destroy all of us, then they will enter Kyiv. If that’s their goal, let them come in, but they will have to live on this land by themselves,” Mr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian parliament claimed Russia has installed a new mayor in the southern port city of Melitopol – a day after the city’s elected mayor was allegedly kidnapped by forces.

Galina Danilchenko, a former member of the city council, was announced as the new mayor on local TV on Saturday, according to reports.

Ukraine’s parliament claimed that the previous mayor, Ivan Fedorov, was kidnapped by armed men acting on behalf of the Kremlin on Friday.

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