Ukraine said Sunday that Russia pounded the country with “hundreds” of drones and missiles overnight, killing at least four people in the capital alone, as neighbouring Poland scrambled jets to secure its airspace.
The attacks came after Russia warned NATO against taking sterner action in response to alleged incursions into airspace covered by the military alliance.
The barrage also followed the revelation by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kyiv had received a US-made Patriot air defence system from Israel for use against Russian assaults.
“Russia launched another massive air attack on Ukrainian cities while people were sleeping,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on X.
“Again, hundreds of drones and missiles, destroying residential buildings and causing civilian casualties,” he said.
He posted footage of flames bursting from the windows of a multi-storey apartment block, with Sybiga blaming the blaze on the attack.
Timur Tkachenko, head of the military administration in the capital Kyiv, had said early reports pointed to “three fatalities”, “including a 12-year-old girl killed by Russians”, before swiftly revising the toll upwards to four after what he said was the discovery of a victim’s body.
More deaths could be uncovered as rescuers went about their jobs, he warned.
In the wider Kyiv region surrounding the capital, the Russian strikes left at least 27 wounded, Mykola Kalachnyk, the military administration’s head said on Telegram. The governor of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said Russian strikes there had injured at least four people.
Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, accused Moscow of waging a “war against civilians”, urging greater action from Kyiv’s Western allies.
“There will be a response to these actions. But the West’s economic blows against Russia must also be stronger,” Yermak said.
Poland’s armed forces said on X that Warsaw had scrambled fighter jets in its airspace and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to Russia’s strikes.
The moves were preventive and aimed at securing Polish airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas close to Ukraine, they said.
– ‘They will regret it’ –
In recent weeks, several European countries have accused Russia of violating their airspace with drones and fighter jets, in what NATO has viewed as a test of its resolve.
Russia has denied that it is responsible for the incursions or that it plans to attack any NATO nation.
Speaking during an address at the UN General Assembly in New York on Saturday, Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said “any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response”.
Speaking later to reporters, Lavrov said that if any country downs objects still within Russian airspace, “they will very much regret it”.
After returning from his own trip to New York, where he also addressed the UN, Zelensky told reporters that “the Israeli (Patriot) system is operating in Ukraine”, adding that Kyiv would receive two more this autumn.
While initially neutral in the conflict, Israel’s ties with Moscow have cooled as Russia has drifted closer to Iran and condemned Israel’s war in Gaza.
Kyiv and Moscow also said on Saturday that the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe’s largest — had been off the grid for four days, stoking fears of a potential nuclear incident.
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