Mayor Andriy Sadovy said Russian missiles had struck an area near Lviv airport, but the airport had not been attacked.
Writing in Telegram, a messaging app, the mayor said he could not give the exact address of the target area, but that it was not necessarily an airport.
In the Ukrainian city of Lviv, as the Russian invasion continues, smoke rises from a factory building near the Lviv airport.
At 7:30 a.m., an AFP reporter saw thick gray smoke billowing through the clear blue sky over Lviv Airport in western Ukraine.
Motorists from armed checkpoints have been diverted back to the airport by road.
At least three explosions were heard in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, according to the Ukrainian 24 television station.
A short video was posted on the Telegram and a mushroom-shaped smoke feather was seen rising on the horizon.
The Ukrainian military says a Russian ground attack on the Ukrainian capital “in the near future” is “unreliable” and could not be due to a lack of experienced commanders as well as severe casualties and low morale among Russian troops.
He said Russia was trying to make up for its losses with Syrian mercenaries and had already recruited 1,000 volunteers.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Anadolu agency reports that at least 65 Turkish nationals and their relatives have been evacuated from the city of Mariupol.
Ismail Hasioglu, head of the main mosque in the city of Mariupol, told the State Administration that the Turks, who left on Thursday, came in their own vehicles.
About 87 Turkish nationals and their families remain in the city, but evacuation buses were unable to enter the city of Mariupol on Thursday due to Russian attacks, he said.
“The Turkish Foreign Ministry has informed the Russian Foreign Ministry about the deportation of Turks. That’s why the area where our church is is not bombed. Ismail Hasioglu Raj, head of the main mosque, said.
Meanwhile, an American citizen has been killed in Ukraine. The American media has identified the murdered American citizen as 68 year old Jimmy Hill.
Fox News quoted Hill’s family members as saying that a social worker had been killed while trying to find food in Chernihiv.
Hill’s sister, Cheryl Hill Gordon, wrote on Facebook that he was “shot dead by Russian snipers while waiting in line for bread with several others.”
“His body was found on the road by local police,” she added.
