Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia begins ‘battle for Donbas’ in east, sets new Mariupol surrender deadline

The State Department called deadly Russian airstrikes that hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Monday part of Moscow’s “campaign of terror.”

“Russia, more than just launching an invasion, more than just launching a war … is undertaking a campaign of terror, a campaign of brutality, a campaign of despicable aggression against the people of Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a news conference. He was responding to a question about the strikes that Ukrainian officials said killed seven people and injured at least 11, including one child.

Lviv, in Ukraine’s far west, had been relatively untouched by the fighting. Over the Easter weekend, families went to church services and took evening strolls while carrying bouquets of flowers. Monday’s strikes, which led to the first wartime deaths recorded inside the city, punctured that bubble of normal life. Afterward, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said on social media that the entire country is vulnerable to Russian assault: “Today in Ukraine there are no safe and unsafe cities.”

Price included Russian strikes on the outskirts of Kyiv, the battle for control of Kharkiv and Russia’s weeks-long siege of Mariupol — where the mayor recently said at least 10,000 civilians have died — as examples of Russia’s “campaign of terror.”

“These are clear indications, they are a clear testament to the campaign of brutality, the campaign of terror, that the Russians are waging against the people of Ukraine,” he said.

Hannah Allam contributed to this report.