Authorities in Ukraine's western Lviv region on Saturday reported three powerful explosions near the regional capital Lviv and urged residents to take shelter.
"There were three powerful explosions near Lviv from the direction of Kryvchytsy, now there is an air raid warning, so keep calm and take shelter," said regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyy in an online post, referring to an area in the eastern outskirts of the city.
Reuters witnesses saw heavy black smoke rising from the northeast side of the city. The cause could not be immediately verified.
There are fears that the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, which has been holding out against Russian forces since the early days of the invasion, could become the next Mariupol.
The city located not far from the border with Belarus on the road to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv is surrounded, and residents who have been unable to flee have had to contend with a lack of power and drinking water as well as more immediate danger from Russian bombardment.
Linguistics scholar Ihar Kazmerchak, a 38-year-old resident, says that the main fear mong people spending their nights underground is Chernihiv suffering the same fate as the besieged southern port city of Mariupol.
He said: “Ravaged houses, fires, corpses in the street, huge aircraft bombs that didn’t explode in courtyards, are not surprising anyone any more.”
