Kyiv, Ukraine — A Russian ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight civilians, including children, and wounded dozens of others, officials said.
The blitz expanded Russia’s almost daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities as Moscow apparently looked to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses.
NATO member Poland, meanwhile, was looking into Ukrainian reports that a Russian cruise missile entered its airspace during the onslaught.
The barrage spanned regions across Ukraine, including areas by the border with Poland that are far from the front line in the east of the country and where Ukraine is believed to store and manufacture weapons for its fight against Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion. Its long-range drones and missiles have battered Russia’s oil sector, causing a fuel crisis there.
The attack came two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Washington with President Trump and representatives of American defense companies, as he pleads for swifter and bigger deliveries of Patriot air defense systems that are the best way to stop Russia’s ballistic assaults.
The Iran war has drained stockpiles of the American-made interceptors. Trump has promised to grant Ukraine licenses to build its own Patriots, but production could take a long time to set up.
“Given the critical shortage of air defense missiles from our partners, our warriors are accomplishing truly incredible things, demonstrating a very high level of professionalism,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
“This Russian terror once again proves that protection against the Russian missile threat is the most important task when it comes to saving the lives of our people,” he said.
Zelenskyy said at least 10 Ukrainian regions were attacked, with dozens of homes, businesses and infrastructure facilities destroyed or damaged.
Russia launched more than 70 missiles, a significant number of them ballistic, he said, along with more than 280 attack drones, of which more than 260 were intercepted.
Polish airspace violated by Russian missile?
A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland overnight, violating NATO airspace, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X.
Sybiha called it a clear demonstration that strengthening Ukraine’s air defense is urgent and serves as a guarantee of wider European protection.
Polish authorities didn’t immediately confirm Sybiha’s comments.
But the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said on X that an unidentified object flying westward in the middle of the night was tracked in Polish airspace and an F-16 fighter jet was launched to identify and intercept it.
The object disappeared from radar screens before it could be identified, the command said. A helicopter flew to its last known location, where the crew discovered a probable impact site in an undeveloped area near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in the Lublin province, the command wrote.
Polish authorities haven’t confirmed what, if anything, crashed. Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to the area Thursday morning to inspect the site. Later, he said it appears the object was a Russian missile, the Reuters news service reported.
“All the indications are that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% certain about the type of missile and who launched it,” Reuters quotes Tusk as telling an emergency meeting. “There was no direct threat because the missile landed in an uninhabited area; we were ready to shoot it down had it continued its flight.”
Details on Russia’s strikes in Ukraine
The Russian Defense Ministry said it aimed at Ukrainian air bases, arms factories and military telecommunications and logistics facilities.
The targets included drone production factories and storage depots, a missile plant, an aircraft repair plant, a factory making electronic components, and a chemical plant, it said.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian attack killed six people and wounded 10, Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said.
Children were among the dead, he said on Telegram – a 6-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17.
The children’s parents were killed in the same attack, but two more children were pulled alive from under the rubble, Zelenskyy said.
“It was an ordinary home, blown (to) smithereens by a ballistic missile,” he said on X.
Russian forces struck the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with ballistic missiles, killing a 31-year-old man and wounding two others, the National Police press service said. Residential buildings, a market, a garage cooperative, storage facilities and vehicles were damaged in the city, police said.
A cruise missile attack struck the western city of Lviv, wounding 34 people, including three children ages 6, 13 and 15, according to Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional military administration. Emergency crews were still searching through rubble.
In the Poltava region, a drone hit company warehouses, killing one person, regional military head Vitalii Diakivnych said.
Ukraine hit back, officials in Russia say
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 258 Ukrainian drones overnight.
A depot belonging to Wildberries online retailer was set ablaze in Russia’s Penza region southeast of Moscow, in the latest strike on the company’s warehouses, Penza Gov. Oleg Melnichenko.
One person was injured and 200 workers were evacuated, he said.
Wildberries also reported that its warehouse in Sarapul in the region of Udmurtia, more than 600 miles from Ukraine, was struck by a Ukrainian drone and set ablaze. It said the workers had been safely evacuated.
Ukraine accuses Wildberries of supplying goods that can be used by the Russian military.