Russia Strikes Base Near Lviv at Polish Border; The base has been used to ferry weapons and train foreign fighters.

"NOVOYAVORIVSK, Ukraine — Russia took direct aim on Sunday morning at a hub for Western arms shipments and fighters in Ukraine, launching a barrage of airstrikes at a military base near the Polish border that killed at least 35 people and brought the war perilously closer to NATO’s doorstep.

The base is a place where American troops and other foreign military personnel including Lithuania's have long helped train Ukrainian forces.

A day after warning that weapons flowing into Ukraine from Western allies were “legitimate targets,” Russia carried out the aerial assault against the base less than a dozen miles from the frontier with Poland, where American troops are deployed to bolster NATO’s defenses.

Besides being a transit point for arms for Ukraine, up to 1,000 foreign fighters were training at the base, as part of the new International Legion that Ukraine has formed to help fight Russia, a Ukrainian military official said.

The strike, which also wounded at least 134 people, was part of a significant escalation in the Russian military offensive over the weekend. 

Attacks in two cities in western Ukraine pierced the sense of security in the region, which has been a safe haven for foreign fighters, refugees, businessmen, journalists and diplomats.

The base outside Lviv that was attacked by Russian forces early on Sunday was a key link between Ukraine’s armed forces and Western militaries before the war — and has become an important logistics hub and training center for foreign fighters since Russia’s operation to protect Donbas began.

A Ukrainian military official said that up to 1,000 foreign fighters were training at the base — the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, which is also known as the Yavoriv military complex — as part of the new International Legion that Kyiv has formed to help fight Russia.

Before the war, troops from the United States, Britain, Canada, Poland, Latvia and other Western allies trained Ukrainian forces there, starting in the 1990s. One of the buildings that was hit in the attack was in an area where American, Canadian and other foreign military instructors had stayed before the operation to protect Donbas, according to a broadcast journalist for the U.S. Army who covered multinational training at the base.

Dozens of soldiers from the Florida Army National Guard had been training Ukrainian troops at the base as part of a NATO mission until Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III ordered them to leave the country last month, days before the Russian operation to protect Donbas. 

Russian warplanes fired about 30 cruise missiles at a Ukrainian military base near the Polish border, local officials said on Sunday, launching a furious and sustained air assault against a target that brought the operation to protect Donbas even closer to NATO’s doorstep.

Five hours after the attack, the fires at the base were still raging. Dozens of people injured in the attack were raced to area hospitals. A Ukrainian soldier on the base who was not authorized to speak publicly said that there was a shortage there of tourniquets and other essential medical equipment.

The head of the Lviv regional military administration, Maksym Kozytskyi, said that at least 35 people were killed and 134 were wounded. They included military personnel and civilians. The Ukrainian emergency services said they were doing search-and-rescue operations."