RF attacks Ukraine: 5 regional centers of the West and Center under attack

On March 24, 2026, Russia carried out one of the most significant strikes of recent months, not only in scale but also in the model of the attack itself. Drones went over Ukraine not at night, when alarms were already familiar, but during the day — over major cities in the west and center of the country, including Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr.

In this attack, it’s especially important not only the number of drones and not only the geography of the arrivals. What is much more important: it was not the front-line zones and not only energy facilities that were under attack, but civilian infrastructure, residential areas, the historic center of Lviv, a maternity hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk, the streets of large cities where people were still living an ordinary working day in the morning. For the Israeli audience, this sounds too familiar.

Daytime strike on cities that were considered relatively deep rear

Until now, in the mass perception, the west of Ukraine often remained a space of relative remoteness from the front line. Not completely safe, but still less vulnerable than the east, south, or the capital. The strike on March 24 once again showed that Moscow is consciously erasing even this boundary.

According to data announced during the day, it was a large-scale wave of strike drones that came from different directions and reached regional centers far removed from the front. The very fact of a daytime attack was no less important than its power: it was a calculation for shock, for overloading the urban rhythm, for a psychological effect in the middle of a working day when the streets are full of people, transport is moving, and the feeling of a ‘night war’ has not yet turned on.

For Israel, the logic here is clear. When strikes are not aimed at a military target as such, but at everyday life, the task is broader than destruction. It is a blow to the sense of normalcy, to the feeling that there is still depth somewhere that the war will not reach.

Lviv: strike on residential areas and cultural heritage

In Lviv, a Russian drone struck the historic center of the city. A separate hit also occurred on a residential building in Sykhiv. As of the time of publication of the initial data, at least 13 people were reported injured, and authorities emphasized that this number could increase.

The fact that a national architectural heritage site — the Bernardine Monastery ensemble, located in Lviv’s historic area, which has international cultural value under enhanced protection — was damaged caused a special resonance. After this, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha publicly called on UNESCO to immediately respond to the Russian strike on the city center.

This is no longer just another episode of aerial terror. When monuments of such a level are under attack, it is not only a war against the state but also a war against memory, the urban fabric, the symbolic space of the country.

Ivano-Frankivsk: strike near the maternity hospital and the first confirmed casualties

In Ivano-Frankivsk, the attack turned out to be even more terrible in its consequences. Initially, it was reported that the maternity hospital was damaged: windows were blown out in the building, but the staff and patients, according to city authorities, survived. Later, regional leadership confirmed the death of two people in the city center.

In addition, it was reported that four people were injured, among them a six-year-old child. And this is the moment where the dry language of reports stops working. Because behind the words ‘damaged object’ here stands a very specific reality: a drone goes to a city where children are born, where people live not near the line of contact, but in the regional center of western Ukraine.

For readers who follow such events through NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, this is an important signal also because Russia’s war against Ukraine is increasingly taking the form of systematic pressure on civilian life as such. Not on infrastructure in the narrow technical sense, but on the very feeling that civilian space still exists separately from the front.

Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr: attack on the rhythm of ordinary life

Ternopil lived under sirens, air defense work, and transport restrictions that day. Authorities reported blocking traffic on Stepan Bandera Avenue, and local residents reported explosions in the city and region. According to local public sources, windows were blown out in a neighboring building near the impact site, but there was no information about casualties at that time.

At first glance, this may seem less dramatic than Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk. But this is exactly how a massive attack works: one city receives direct destruction, another — transport paralysis, a third — panic, a fourth — overload of services. In total, this is a blow to the country as a living organism.

Vinnytsia: explosions, smoke, and transport collapse

In Vinnytsia, a series of explosions thundered during the day. Detonations were heard in different parts of the city, and local channels published footage of a column of black smoke over the city. Later, serious disruptions in movement were reported: electric transport and municipal buses stopped, mainly minibusses moved, and multi-kilometer traffic jams formed on the roads.

As of 18:45, regional authorities reported 11 injured and one dead as a result of a massive attack on the Vinnytsia region. And this again shows the nature of the strike: the target becomes not only the place of impact but the entire urban system — transport, logistics, medicine, rescue response, movement of people.

Zhytomyr: house damaged, girl injured

In Zhytomyr, reports of an explosion in the central part of the city initially spread, and then authorities clarified that a two-story residential building was damaged. A 12-year-old girl was injured, hospitalized, and provided with medical assistance.

From a military point of view, Moscow often tries to dissolve such episodes in the general statistics of the raid. But on a public level, it is these that are remembered most strongly. Not the map. Not the trajectory. A girl, a residential building, a daytime strike on a peaceful city.

One of the largest drone attacks and a direct signal not only to Ukraine

In addition to the listed cities, explosions were also recorded in Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and in the Khmelnytsky region, according to local authorities, a man was injured in the Shepetivka district. This means that it was not a series of isolated arrivals, but a broad wave that covered several regions of the country at once.

According to monitoring sources, this attack became one of the largest in the entire time of using strike UAVs against Ukraine. It was reported that starting from the evening of March 23, hundreds of drones were recorded in the country’s airspace, and already in the daytime phase of March 24, according to the representative of the Ukrainian Air Force Command Yuriy Ignat, more than 400 drones flew into the country from 09:00 to 15:00. In total, before the start of the daytime wave from the evening of March 23, 392 drones were recorded flying.

Even if these numbers will still be clarified, the scale itself is already clear. This was not a demonstration of force for headlines. It was an attempt to overload air defense, stretch the attention of services, strike at cities that were supposed to live an ordinary day, and simultaneously send a signal to the whole country: there is no more safe depth.

For Israel, this episode is important not out of solidarity ‘in general,’ but for a quite practical reason. Ukraine and Israel, despite all the differences in wars, face the same reality: the enemy deliberately strikes at civilian everyday life to destroy not only buildings but also the internal resilience of society. That is why the news about Lviv, Vinnytsia, or Ivano-Frankivsk cannot be read as a local Ukrainian chronicle. It is part of a broader logic of modern warfare against cities.

And it seems that it was this logic that Russia showed as openly as possible on March 24 — in the middle of the day, without disguise, immediately on a large geography, with a strike on housing, medicine, transport, and cultural heritage. Not on the edge of war. On the very normal life.