Kyiv, Ukraine — Russian ballistic missiles and drones have killed at least eight civilians, including children, and wounded dozens of others overnight in Ukraine, officials said.
The blitz was expanding Almost daily Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities as Moscow obviously sought to exploit Kiev’s critical lack of anti-missile defenses supplied by the West.
NATO member Poland, meanwhile, was looking into Ukrainian reports that a Russian cruise missile had entered its airspace during the attack.
The shelling has hit regions across Ukraine, including areas on the border with Poland, far from the front lines in the east of the country and where Ukraine is believed to be storing and producing weapons to fight the more than four-year-old Russian invasion. Its drones and long-range missiles have struck Russia’s oil sector, triggering a fuel crisis there.
The attack took place two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Trump in Washington and representatives of American defense companies as he calls for faster and larger deliveries of Patriot air defense systems, which are the best way to stop Russia’s ballistic attacks.
YURI DYACHISHYN/AFP via Getty Images 
Iranian war exhausted the reserves of American production of interceptors. Trump has promised to give Ukraine licenses to build its own Patriots, but setting up production could take a long time.
“Given the critical shortage of anti-aircraft missiles among our partners, our soldiers are doing truly incredible things, demonstrating a very high level of professionalism,” Zelensky 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.
Zelensky said that at least 10 regions of Ukraine were attacked, dozens of houses, businesses and infrastructure facilities were destroyed or damaged.
According to him, Russia launched more than 70 missiles, a significant number of them ballistic, as well as more than 280 attack drones, of which more than 260 were intercepted.
Did a Russian missile violate Poland’s airspace?
The Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed the territory of Poland at night, violating NATO airspace, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sybiga said on X.
Sybiga called it a clear demonstration that the strengthening of air defense of Ukraine is relevant and serves as a guarantee of a wider European defense.
Polish authorities did not immediately confirm Sibiha’s comment.
But the operational command of the Polish armed forces said on X that an unidentified object flying west in the middle of the night had been tracked in Polish airspace and an F-16 fighter jet had been launched to identify and intercept it.
The object disappeared from the radar screens without having time to identify it, the command reported. The helicopter took off to the last known location, where the crew found the likely crash site in an undeveloped area near the village of Tarnava-Kolonia in the Lublin Voivodeship, the command writes.
Polish authorities have not confirmed what exactly happened. Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the area on Thursday morning to inspect the site. He later said that the object appeared to be a Russian missile, Reuters reported.
“Everything points to the fact that it was a Russian Kh-101 ballistic missile, but we want to be 100% sure about the type of missile and who launched it,” Tusk was quoted by Reuters as saying at the emergency meeting. “There was no direct threat because the missile fell in a deserted area; we were ready to shoot her down if she continued to fly.’
Details of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the target was aimed at Ukrainian air bases, weapons factories and military telecommunications and logistics facilities.
Targets included drone factories and warehouses, a missile factory, an aircraft repair plant, an electronic component factory and a chemical plant, the report said.
In the Dnipropetrovs’ka region, as a result of the Russian attack, six people were killed and 10 wounded, the head of the regional military administration, Alexander Ganzha, said.
Among the dead are children, he said in Telegram – a 6-year-old girl and 11- and 17-year-old boys.
The children’s parents were killed in the same attack, but two more children were pulled alive from under the rubble, Zelensky said.
“It was an ordinary house blown to smithereens by a ballistic missile,” he said on X.
Russian troops fired ballistic missiles at the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, as a result of which a 31-year-old man was killed and two others were injured, the press service of the National Police reported. In the city, residential buildings, a market, a garage cooperative, warehouses and transport were damaged, the police reported.
According to the head of the Lviv regional military administration Maksim Kazitsky, 34 people were wounded, including three children aged 6, 13 and 15, as a result of the shelling of the city of Lviv in the west of the country by cruise missiles. Emergency crews were still searching for debris.
In the Poltava region, a drone crashed into a warehouse of enterprises, one person was killed, regional military chief Vitaly Dziakivnych said.
Ukraine struck back, say officials in Russia
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense of Russia reported that the air defense system shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight.
In the Penza region of Russia, southeast of Moscow, during the latest attack on the company’s warehouses, a warehouse belonging to the Wildberries online store was set on fire, Penza Governor Oleg Melnichenko said.
According to him, one person was injured, and 200 workers were evacuated.
Wildberries also said its warehouse in Sarapul, Udmurtia, more than 600 miles from Ukraine, was hit by a Ukrainian drone and set on fire. It says that the workers were safely evacuated.
Ukraine accuses Wildberries of supplying goods that can be used by the Russian military.