Kyiv region police say the American journalist was shot dead by Russian forces in Irbin

Until Sunday morning, the Lviv region in western Ukraine was a safe haven in a war-torn country.

It was the place where families living in the East would send their farthest children to keep them safe.

Until now, when the sirens sounded signaling a possible air strike, Vasyl Konets, a driver who lives in Novoyavorivsk, a town about 20 miles from Lviv, said he wasn’t too worried. He would have gone to safety, but perhaps not as fast as he should have.

The war was still far away.

All that changed when Russian strikes hit the Yavoriv military training ground on the outskirts of Novoyavorsk, killing 35 people, the Lviv regional administration said on Sunday.

More than 30 missiles fired by warplanes over the Black and Azov seas hit the military base, Maxim Kozytsky, head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration, said in a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday.

Suddenly, the war was on the doorstep of Konitz.

The training base is intertwined with city life. Many of its residents work there or in its support services. Those who don’t work for it know firsthand someone who works.

Konitz saw the damage they caused firsthand.

“When the missile hit the ground, I saw the explosion and smoke, a cloud of smoke and fire in the shape of mushrooms,” he told CNN.

“It lasted 30 minutes and I heard maybe eight strikes, maybe some missiles falling or part of the missiles exploding separately, I don’t know.”

Konitz told CNN that the attack on the base “changed everything.”

Konitz said he is now considering sending his two children away from Ukraine — something he hadn’t necessarily thought of before.

“It feels less safe and more dangerous. Yesterday and yesterday we were more relaxed and when we heard the alarms we didn’t move that fast, we didn’t take it seriously. But today we are mobilizing and preparing to leave very quickly when we hear the alarm.”

CNN’s Sofia Harbozyuk contributed to this posting.