At least four people have been killed in an apartment building after Russia fired cruise missiles at a western Ukraine city far from the front line of the war.

Officials said it was the heaviest attack on civilian areas of Lviv since the Kremlin’s forces launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

The night-time attack destroyed the roof and the top two floors of a residential building, injuring a further 34 people. Emergency crews with dogs are searching through the rubble.

The youngest victim was 21 years old and the oldest was 95, according to Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Regional Military Administration.

Mr Kozytskyi said “this woman survived the Second World War but, unfortunately, she didn’t survive” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Debris and wrecked parked cars lined the street outside the building, which overlooks a small neighbourhood park with swings and climbing frames amid trees.

Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi said around 60 apartments and 50 cars in the area of the strike were damaged.

US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink described the attack as vicious.

“Russia’s repeated attacks on civilians are absolutely horrifying,” she tweeted.

The Kremlin’s forces have repeatedly hit civilian areas during the war, though Russian officials say they choose only targets of military value.

Lviv is near the western border with Poland and is more than 300 miles from the front lines of the war in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s counter-offensive to dislodge Russian forces is in its early stages.

Ukraine’s air force reported it intercepted seven of the 10 Kalibr cruise missiles that Russia fired from the Black Sea towards the Lviv region and its namesake city.

Mr Sadovyi addressed residents in a video message, saying the attack was the largest on Lviv’s civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the full-scale invasion last year.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram: “Unfortunately, there are wounded and dead. My condolences to the relatives! There will definitely be a response to the enemy. A tangible one.”

Ganna Fedorenko, a local resident, said: “Russians are hitting us. That’s how they love us. I’m sorry for those people who were killed. They were young. So sorry for them.”

Ms Fedorenko, who received injuries on her face, said: “This is terrible. They hit civilians.”

In the early days of the war Lviv served as a main transit point for millions of refugees from different parts of the country that crossed the border to Europe.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians from the east and south remained in the calmer and safer Lviv.

Like the rest of the country, Lviv suffered power outages when Russia fired hundreds missiles over the winter, aiming to destroy Ukraine’s energy system.

However, the attacks in the city were not as frequent as in the capital Kyiv, which makes Thursday’s strike a shock for many in the city.