Eight people, including two boys and a girl, have died during a Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine, according to local officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 70 missiles and over 280 drones at the country overnight. The worst attack was near Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih.
Dozens of “ordinary homes, civilian businesses and infrastructure facilities” were destroyed or damaged in the attack, he added.
The attack comes after Zelensky met US President Donald Trump in Washington DC this week to urge the US to grant Ukraine a licence to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, which he says are crucial to the country’s defence.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said a Russian cruise missile had “crossed into Poland” as part an attack on Ukraine, “violating Nato airspace”.
Authorities in Poland said they were investigating after a crater was discovered on Polish soil, but they have not yet confirmed if it was caused by a Russian projectile.
A six-year-old girl and two boys, aged 11 and 17, were among six killed when a Russian ballistic missile hit the Ukrainian village of Radushne, a few kilometres from Kryvyi Rih, local defence council chief Oleksandr Vilkul said.
The missile had hit a home where a large family lived, according to Vilkul, and Zelensky said the house had been “blown into smithereens”.
Two private homes were completely destroyed, the defence council chief said. Another eight people were wounded in the attack, including an 84-year-old woman who was taken to hospital, and two children who were pulled from the rubble alive, officials added.
Ukraine had been expecting a Russian offensive, with Zelensky warning just hours before the strikes that Moscow was preparing for a “massive attack”.
In Kyiv, one person died and fires broke out in three non-residential buildings overnight, the capital’s mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram.
The mayor of Poltava also reported a death, which came after he said a Nova Poshta postal terminal had been attacked.
There were also explosions in Lviv and mayor Andriy Sadovyi said residential buildings had been damaged.
Multiple people were injured with some trapped under a building, he added, saying residents were helping rescuers to clear the rubble.
