Ukraine’s most westerly city has become a place of Plan Bs

president sends 190,000 troops to , which he refers to as “historically Russian lands”, one logical place of retreat stands out. That is Lviv, a city that was Polish from 1918 to 1939 and part of other central European states before that. It is a place of baroque buildings, art academies and fiercely anti-Russian sentiment. Its location, in the far west of the country, could make it the last place in Ukraine that Russia tries to conquer. That makes it appealing not just for those , but also for those eyeing up a potential seat for Ukraine’s government if Vladimir Putin’s forces .Life in Lviv is not completely untouched by the war. The town has not yet been the site of any fighting, but shops and restaurants are mostly shut and some have been boarded up. Long queues snake from every cash machine. Air-raid sirens blare during the day and a curfew begins at 10pm each night. Checkpoints have sprouted up on the city’s edges. Nerves jangled on February 26th after reports said that Russian helicopters and 60 paratroopers showed up several hundred kilometres west of Kyiv, suggesting that Russia might try to cut off Lviv from the rest of the country.