KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – A Russian ballistic missile and drone barrage across Ukraine overnight killed at least eight civilians, including children, and injured more than 50 others, officials said Thursday, and NATO scrambled its warplanes after one of the missiles crossed the country’s western border into Poland.
The blitz expanded Russia´s almost daily bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including the capital of Kyiv where tens of thousands spent the night sheltering in subway stations, as Moscow apparently looked to exploit Kyiv´s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses.
NATO said a Russian missile entered Polish airspace during the onslaught and landed in a rural area. It caused no injuries or damage but could deepen tensions between the military alliance and Moscow, as wary European countries fear the 4-year-old war could spill into their territory.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called it “yet another reckless act by Russia and a dangerous consequence of its war against Ukraine.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was “a very serious incident,” but added: “There are absolutely no reasons to believe that Poland was the target.”
Russia’s barrage struck areas of Ukraine where weapons are believed to be stored and manufactured. Ukrainian long-range drones and missiles have battered Russia’s oil sector, causing a fuel crisis.
The attack came two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Donald Trump and representatives of American defense companies as he pleads for swifter and bigger deliveries of Patriot air defense systems to stop Russia´s ballistic missiles.
The Iran war has drained stockpiles of the U.S.-made interceptors. Trump has promised to grant Ukraine licenses to build its own Patriots, but production could take many months.
“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 missiles, he said, and over 280 attack drones, of which more than 260 were intercepted.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted Ukrainian air bases, arms factories and military telecommunications and logistics facilities, including drone factories and storage depots, as well as plants for missiles, aircraft repairs, electronics and chemicals.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian attack killed six people and wounded 10, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, in a post on Telegram. Children were among the dead – a 6-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17 in the area of Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown, Hanzha added.
The children´s parents were killed in the same attack, but two more children were pulled alive from the rubble, Zelenskyy said.
“It was an ordinary home, blown (to) smithereens by a ballistic missile,” he said on X.
In Kyiv, Russian forces struck the capital with ballistic missiles, killing a 31-year-old man and wounding two others, the National Police press service said.
More than 56,000 people sheltered in Kyiv´s subway stations overnight, according to the Facebook post from the metro system.
A cruise missile attack struck the western city of Lviv, killing one person and wounding over 30, including children aged 6, 13 and 15, said Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional military administration.
In the Poltava region, a drone hit warehouses, killing one person, said regional military head Vitalii Diakivnych.
Russian forces also dropped three powerful glide bombs on an industrial zone in the southern city of Kherson, killing a 56-year-old man, local officials said.
A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland overnight, violating NATO airspace, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X, calling it a clear demonstration that strengthening Ukraine´s air defenses would also guarantee wider European security.
Responding to the missile alert, NATO forces in Poland scrambled two fighter jets, an attack helicopter and two other aircraft, and activated ground defenses, said Col. Michael O´Connell, the spokesperson for the alliance´s military command in Belgium.
The missile quickly disappeared from radar, the Polish Armed Forces said. A helicopter flew to its last known location, where the crew discovered a probable impact site in a farming area in Lublin province, the command said.
Investigators found fragments indicating that the object was a Kh-101 missile, Polish news agency PAP reported.
Tusk had met with Zelenskyy in Lublin on Wednesday to discuss defense issues.
NATO military commander Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich told Poland´s Defense Chief Gen. Wieslaw Kukulan the military alliance “will continue to take all necessary measures to defend NATO territory,” O´Donnell said.
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.
Four people were injured and 200 workers were evacuated, he said, adding that about 100 firefighters were deployed.
Wildberries also reported its warehouse in Sarapul in the Udmurtia region more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Ukraine, was struck by a Ukrainian drone and set ablaze. It said the workers had been safely evacuated.
The Russian online news outlet Astra reported that another Wildberries depot in the Perm region in the Urals was also set ablaze by a Ukrainian drone strike. Regional authorities reported a Ukrainian drone attack but didn´t give information about the damage.
Thursday´s attacks on Wildberries warehouses brought to 14 the number of the retailer´s depots struck by Ukrainian drones in under two weeks. Ukraine accuses Wildberries of supplying goods that can be used by the Russian military.
Ukrainian drone units destroyed four more vessels belonging to Russia´s “shadow fleet” of sanctions-busting tankers, bringing the total to 205 since the operation began July 6, Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, said on his Telegram channel.