Kyiv, Ukraine. Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people across Ukraine on Thursday, including one person in Kyiv, while attacks reached the western city of Lviv and prompted neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets.
The strikes came as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy returned from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump had agreed to provide Ukraine with licences for Patriot missiles.
Attacks across Ukraine
Air raid alerts were issued across most of Ukraine, while explosions were heard in Kyiv, according to a Reuters witness. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said several non-residential sites caught fire.
Emergency services said one person was killed and two were injured in the capital. A further six people, including two children, were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions.
In Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskiy’s hometown in central Ukraine, six people were killed and eight injured in what the head of the city’s defence council, Oleksandr Vilkul, described as a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile.
Two girls aged five and 12 were among those killed, Vilkul said. He said the missile was launched from Russia’s Voronezh region and hit the home of a large family, adding that the death toll could rise as emergency crews cleared rubble.
Damage in Lviv and Polish response
In Lviv, near the Polish border, Russian missiles damaged two apartment buildings and injured 15 people, officials said. Rescue workers were clearing debris to reach people believed to be trapped.
Zelenskiy had earlier warned that a major Russian attack was likely and said the safety of Ukrainians depended on allies’ willingness to provide air defence systems.
“It is important that our partners fully understand what is happening and that the protection of people’s lives depends directly on their willingness,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
Poland, a European Union and NATO member, said its armed forces scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace during the Russian strikes.
