Russian strikes on Ukraine kill 8; Poland scrambles fighter jets

Russian air strikes killed at least eight people across Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, in attacks stretching as far west as Lviv and prompting neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to protect its airspace.

The attacks came as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump had agreed to provide Ukraine with licences to produce Patriot missiles.

Air raid alerts were issued across much of Ukraine, while explosions were heard in Kyiv, according to a Reuters witness. Several non-residential sites caught fire in the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Emergency services said one person was killed and two others injured in Kyiv. Six more people, including two children, were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while another person died in the Poltava region, local officials said.

In Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged five and 12 were among those killed when a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile struck a residential building, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city's defence council.

"A dark night," Vilkul wrote on Telegram, saying the missile, launched from Russia's Voronezh region, hit the home of a large family. He warned the death toll could rise as rescue workers searched through the rubble.

In the western city of Lviv, close to the Polish border, rescue workers searched damaged apartment buildings after Russian missile strikes injured 26 people, local authorities said.

Earlier, Zelenskiy warned that Russia was preparing a major attack and said Ukraine's ability to protect its citizens depended on continued support from its allies.

"It is important that our partners fully understand what is happening and that the protection of people's lives depends directly on their willingness," he wrote on Telegram.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had struck what it described as military facilities across Ukraine, including targets in Kyiv, Lviv and the Dnipropetrovsk region, as well as three cargo ships.

Poland, a NATO and European Union member bordering Ukraine, said it had scrambled fighter aircraft to safeguard its airspace during the attacks.

Separately, police in Poland's Lublin region said they were investigating debris and a crater discovered in a field in Biłgoraj County after reports of a loud explosion. The object has not yet been identified.

Ukrainian drones hit Russian warehouses

In Russia, a warehouse belonging to leading online retailer Wildberries caught fire in the western city of Penza following what regional governor Oleg Melnichenko said was a Ukrainian drone attack.

One person was injured and about 200 people were evacuated from the site, he said. It came a day after another Wildberries facility in central Russia was evacuated following a separate drone attack.

A third Wildberries warehouse, in Sarapul in Russia's Udmurtia region, also caught fire after a drone strike, the company said.

The attacks have disrupted thousands of small businesses that rely on the retailer's logistics network, with recent drone strikes damaging nearly a dozen Wildberries warehouses and destroying around 10% of its storage capacity, according to the company and local authorities.

Russia's largest lender, Sberbank, has warned it may have to increase provisions for bad loans as the attacks continue to affect online retailers and their suppliers.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences intercepted 258 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports. Both Moscow and Kyiv deny deliberately targeting civilians during the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.