Television and radio services have gone off the air in the Rivne region of western Ukraine following a reported Russian air attack.

According to regional governor Vitaliy Koval via Telegram, the authorities are working to restore TV and radio services in the region. He told followers that alternative means to access programming is via satellite and cable. The extent of the damage is not currently known. The tower is located in a relatively sparsely populated area that appears to be predominantly agricultural, just south of the E40 highway.

The TV tower is located around 12km east of the city of Rivne, population around 240,000. Rivne is around 200km north east of Lviv, the city to which many western diplomatic missions relocated and from where international TV news channels are based having moved from Kyiv as the situation in the capital city worsened.

The attack on the Rivne tower follows the strikes on the Kyiv and Kharkiv transmission towers (see: https://aib.org.uk/second-ukraine-tv-tower-hit-channels-off-the-air/ and https://aib.org.uk/aib-condemns-attack-on-kyiv-tv-tower/).

Update at 1800GMT on 14 March 2022: Photos of the bombing site have been shared by the region’s governor. These show the TV tower still standing with a building immediately adjacent – presumably housing transmission equipment – in ruins. It is reported that nine people died in the attack and others are likely buried in the rubble.

Main photo: Google Street View; above: Віталій Коваль