Russian strikes on Ukraine kill 13; Poland scrambles fighter jets

Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people in Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, in attacks extending as far as the western city of Lviv, forcing neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace.

The attacks come as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returns from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump agreed to give Ukraine licences for Patriot missiles.

Air raid alerts sounded across most regions of Ukraine, with a Reuters witness saying explosions were heard in Kyiv.

A few non-residential sites caught fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app.

One person was killed and two more injured in the capital, emergency services said, with six more, including two children, killed in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava.

In Zelenskiy’s hometown, the central city of Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged 5 and 12 were among six killed, with eight injured in what Oleksandr Vilkul, the city’s defence council head, said was a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile.

Kyiv hit with missiles; Russia and Ukraine both report civilians killed in strikes

“A dark night,” Vilkul said on Telegram, adding that the missile, launched from Russia’s Voronezh region, struck the home of a large family, and warned the death toll could increase as emergency workers clear away rubble.

In Lviv, close to Poland, rescue workers were scrambling to clear rubble to reach those trapped after Russian missiles damaged two apartment buildings and injured 26, officials said.

Earlier, Zelenskiy had warned a massive Russian attack was likely, saying the safety of Ukrainians depended on the willingness of allies to provide anti-missile defences.

“It is important that our partners fully understand what is happening and that the protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday its forces struck what it called military facilities across Ukraine, in areas from the capital Kyiv to Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk, as well as three cargo ships.

Poland, a member of the European Union and NATO, scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace amid Russian air strikes, its armed forces said on X.

Polish police in the Lublin region close to Ukraine’s border said on X they received a report of a loud bang heard in Bilgoraj county and discovered a crater and scattered debris from an unidentified object in a field.  

Attacks continue on Russia’s top online retailer

A warehouse of Russian top online retailer Wildberries caught fire in the western city of Penza after Ukraine’s drone attack, regional governor Oleg Melnichenko said on Telegram.

One person was injured and about 200 people evacuated from the site, he added, just a day after the company, which has become a frequent target of Ukraine’s attacks, evacuated another facility in central Russia.

Another of its facilities, in Sarapul in Russia’s Udmurtia region, also caught fire after a drone attack, the company said separately on Thursday.

Its losses pile on the pain for ordinary Russians, some of whom have made online sales their main source of income, as Ukraine continues hitting energy facilities and refineries, deepening the fuel crisis in the world’s largest country by area.

Drone strikes have damaged nearly a dozen Wildberries warehouses recently, destroying about 10% of storage capacity and inflicting losses on tens of thousands of small businesses using the platform, the company and local authorities say.

Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, has warned it may have to boost loan-loss provisions as attacks on Wildberries hit the finances of online retailers and their suppliers.

Russia downed a total of 258 drones overnight, its defence ministry said.

That figure covers Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the war following Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.