Russian missile and drone barrage kills 10 in Ukraine, Kh-101 cruise missile crashes in Poland

Russian barrage hits cities across Ukraine

Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack on Ukraine overnight, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more. The assault, which President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned of a day earlier, struck cities from Kyiv in the north to Lviv in the far west, near the Polish border. A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile also entered Polish airspace and crashed in a field, prompting NATO to scramble warplanes; Prime Minister Donald Tusk named the missile type later that day, citing initial findings. The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strikes, saying they targeted military airfields, arms factories, telecommunications infrastructure, logistics centers, and three cargo ships used for military transport in the Black Sea.

Kryvyi Rih family home destroyed

The heaviest single loss of life occurred in a suburb of Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky's hometown, where a missile struck a large family's house. Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city's defence council, said a direct strike by an Iskander-M ballistic missile launched from Voronezh hit a private house where a large family lived, killing two girls aged 5 and 12 along with four adults, and wounding eight more. A day of mourning was declared for Friday in the Dnipropetrovsk region village. In the southern city of Kherson, a drone hit a car, killing a man and a woman. Two more deaths were reported from Kyiv and the Poltava region. In Lviv, two apartment blocks caught fire after being hit, and the city administration said 30 people were injured. Rescue workers searched through rubble for survivors as daylight revealed the extent of the damage.

Zelensky renews plea for Patriots

Zelensky said Russia had used more than 70 cruise and ballistic missiles and over 280 attack drones. Ukraine's air force said its units shot down 55 missiles and 265 drones, but stopped only one of nine ballistic missiles; eleven missiles and seventeen drones reached targets at twenty locations. That gap is the substance of the president's appeal, because the Patriot is the only system in Ukraine's arsenal able to bring down Russian ballistic missiles, and Patriots are in chronically short supply worldwide. The attack came two days after Zelensky met US President Donald Trump and representatives of American defence companies to press for faster and larger deliveries.

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. 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 had warned on Wednesday, citing a report from the air force chief, that a major Russian air attack was imminent. After the strikes, he again called on allies to supply more air defense missiles, saying that delays directly cause the destruction and casualties seen overnight.

Polish airspace breached

Poland's operational command, DORSZ, said an unidentified object entered Polish airspace at about 3:40am local time and disappeared from radar roughly six minutes later. A Mi-24 helicopter crew sent to the object's last known position located the probable crash site in an undeveloped area near the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in the Lublin voivodeship, where police and firefighters found a crater about ten metres across on farmland, some two kilometres from the nearest buildings. Air raid sirens sounded in Lublin. By Thursday evening Tusk said initial findings showed the object was a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, a conclusion confirmed by deputy defence minister Cezary Tomczyk, while Marcin Kozak of the Lublin District Prosecutor's Office said it contained a large quantity of explosives. Tusk called it a very serious incident but said there were absolutely no reasons to believe Poland was the target, adding that Poland had been ready to shoot the missile down had it continued its flight, and that Ukraine and the United States had asked to take part in the investigation. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called it yet another reckless act by Russia and a dangerous consequence of its war against Ukraine. No casualties or damage were reported on Polish territory. The missile fell hours after Zelensky had met Tusk in Lublin.

Ukrainian strikes inside Russia

While Russia pounded Ukrainian cities, Kyiv's forces continued to hit targets inside Russia. A drone attack struck an oil tanker in the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium said. Another drone attack in the port of Taman in Krasnodar Krai caused injuries, according to local authorities. In the Penza region, Governor Oleg Melnichenko reported that 15 drones set fire to a large Wildberries warehouse, burning across 62,000 square metres, injuring at least one person and forcing about 200 staff to be evacuated; another Wildberries site, in Sarapul in Udmurtia, also caught fire after a drone attack. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight and confirmed its own strikes had hit military targets across Ukraine.