At least eight people, including three children, were killed and more than 50 others injured after Russia launched a large-scale overnight missile and drone attack across multiple regions of Ukraine, officials said Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 70 missiles—many of them ballistic—and over 280 attack drones in one of the latest waves of nationwide strikes. Ukrainian forces intercepted more than 260 drones, but a shortage of Western-supplied air defence missiles limited the country’s ability to stop ballistic attacks.
The deadliest strike occurred in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where six people, including a six-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17, were killed. Zelenskyy said the children’s parents also died when a ballistic missile destroyed their home, while two other children were rescued from the rubble.
In Kyiv, a Russian ballistic missile killed one person and injured two others, prompting more than 56,000 residents to seek shelter in the capital’s subway system overnight.
The western city of Lviv, near the Polish border, was also struck, leaving 34 people injured, including three children. Additional attacks in the Poltava and Kherson regions killed two more civilians.
Russia said it targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure, including air bases, weapons factories, drone production facilities, logistics centres, and communications sites.
The attacks came just days after Zelenskyy met U.S. President Donald Trump and American defence companies in Washington to press for additional Patriot air defence systems. Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s shortage of interceptor missiles has become increasingly severe, partly because U.S. stockpiles have been depleted by the conflict with Iran.
The overnight barrage also spilled beyond Ukraine’s borders. Polish authorities said a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile entered Polish airspace before crashing in a farming area in eastern Poland. An F-16 fighter jet was scrambled, and investigators later recovered missile fragments.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the airspace violation “a very serious incident” but said there was no indication Poland had been deliberately targeted.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand condemned both the attacks on Ukraine and the breach of Polish airspace, accusing Russia of showing disregard for Ukraine’s sovereignty and NATO’s security.
Meanwhile, Russia said it intercepted 258 Ukrainian drones overnight as Kyiv continued long-range strikes targeting Russian logistics and energy infrastructure. Ukrainian officials also claimed to have destroyed four additional vessels linked to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” used to circumvent international sanctions.
