LVIV
A TRANSIT CITY AND ASYLUM FOR REFUGEES FROM THE EAST
THE CITY. Lviv is an important industrial centre and transport hub. It is also a crucial scientific and cultural centre, with Polish heritage. At the beginning of 2021, with a population of almost 718,000, Lviv was the seventh most densely populated Ukrainian city.
Lviv is a special city for Polish history and culture. In the years immediately preceding the outbreak of World War I Lviv was the centre of Polish pro-independence activities in Galicia. It was here that the Union of Active Struggle (1908) and the Riflemen's Association (1910) were formed by Józef Piłsudski and Kazimierz Sosnkowski.
After the end of World War II, the vast majority of Polish inhabitants of Lviv were displaced and forced to move to the territory of the Republic of Poland, and they were replaced mainly by people from the hinterland of the former USSR and Ukrainians displaced from Poland. In 1991 Lviv became part of independent Ukraine.
In 1997 the Old Town was added to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List
THE WAR
So far Lviv has not been bombed as intensively as cities in the east. The Russians have carried out several rocket attacks on Lviv. There have been missile strikes on the training centre in Yavoriv (Lviv region), as well as on part of the Lviv airport. The rockets destroyed, among other things, energy infrastructure. Three missiles have hit an aircraft repair plant.
For weeks crowds of refugees from the bombed cities have been fleeing the war in Ukraine to seek refuge in the West, mainly in Poland. It is also via Lviv that military support from the USA, the NATO countries and other countries is constantly coming to Ukraine. The rockets that hit Lviv, killing and injuring several civilians, were primarily intended to destroy arms shipments and railway infrastructure.
JAK POMAGAMY?
Lviv is now an important transit city. Humanitarian aid from Poland to Donbass is often transported through Lviv. Lviv is one of the stages on the route in the so-called “relay” humanitarian deliveries, where our hauliers deliver aid to military chaplains in Lviv who are able to reach places which no other organisation can reach due to hostilities and danger. Inhabitants of towns with no access to humanitarian aid suffer from hunger and special passes are often the only guarantee that humanitarian aid can reach its location.
