Russia missiles kill eight in Ukraine as Polish airspace alert deepens

Kyiv,UPDATED: Jul 30, 2026 16:38 IST

A Russian ballistic missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight civilians, including children, and injured more than 50 people, according to officials. The strikes hit at least 10 regions and came as Kyiv again pressed its Western partners for faster delivery of air defence systems to counter Russia's frequent assaults.

The barrage also raised concerns beyond Ukraine after Ukrainian officials said a Russian cruise missile entered Polish airspace during the attack. Poland said it tracked an unidentified object and sent up an F-16 fighter jet, but had not immediately confirmed what it was.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, along with more than 280 attack drones, of which more than 260 were intercepted. He said dozens of homes, businesses and infrastructure facilities were destroyed or damaged. The attack followed his meeting in Washington two days earlier with US President Donald Trump and representatives of American defence companies, where he sought quicker and larger deliveries of Patriot air defence systems.

The Iran war has reduced stockpiles of the US-made interceptors. Trump has said Ukraine would be granted licences to build its own Patriots, but setting up production could take a long time. Zelenskyy wrote on social media, "Given the critical shortage of air defence missiles from our partners, our warriors are accomplishing truly incredible things, demonstrating a very high level of professionalism." He added, "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."

Russia's Defence Ministry said the attack targeted Ukrainian air bases, arms factories, and military telecommunications and logistics facilities. It said the targets included drone production factories and storage depots, a missile plant, an aircraft repair plant, a factory making electronic components, and a chemical plant.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, six people were killed and 10 were injured, regional military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha said. Zelenskyy said the dead included a six-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17 in the Kryvyi Rih area, his home region. He said the children's parents were also killed, while two other children were pulled alive from the rubble. "It was an ordinary home, blown to smithereens by a ballistic missile " he wrote on X.

In Kyiv, ballistic missiles killed a 31-year-old man and injured two others, according to the Police press service. In the western city of Lviv, a cruise missile attack injured 34 people, including children aged 6, 13 and 15, said regional military administration head Maksym Kozytskyi. Emergency teams were still searching through the rubble. In the Poltava region, a drone strike on company warehouses killed one person, regional military head Vitalii Diakivnych said. In Kherson, local officials said three glide bombs hit an industrial zone on Thursday morning, killing a 56-year-old man.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile crossed into Poland overnight, violating NATO airspace, and said the incident showed why strengthening Ukraine's air defence was urgent for wider European protection. Polish authorities did not immediately confirm his statement. The Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said an unidentified object flying westward was tracked in Polish airspace during the night, and an F-16 was launched to identify and intercept it. The object disappeared from radar before it could be identified. A helicopter later found a probable impact site in a farming area in Lublin province. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk travelled there on Thursday morning. Zelenskyy had met Tusk in Lublin on Wednesday to discuss defence issues.

Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight. In Russia's Penza region, Governor Oleg Melnichenko said a Wildberries warehouse was set on fire, one person was injured and 200 workers were evacuated. Wildberries also said its warehouse in Sarapul in Udmurtia, more than 1,000 kilometres from Ukraine, was hit by a Ukrainian drone and caught fire, but all workers were safely evacuated. Russian outlet Astra reported that another Wildberries depot in the Perm region in the Urals was also set ablaze in a drone strike. Regional authorities reported a Ukrainian drone attack there but gave no details on damage. Ukraine accuses Wildberries of supplying goods that can be used by the Russian military.

Ukrainian drone units also destroyed four more vessels from Russia's so-called shadow fleet of sanctions-busting tankers, taking the total to 205 since the operation began on July 6, according to Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces. Overall, the overnight attacks underlined both the continued intensity of Russia's strikes across Ukraine and the growing regional concern over their wider fallout.

With PTI Inputs

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