Poland scrambles jets as Russia launches massive aerial assault on Ukraine

Poland scrambles jets as Russia launches massive aerial assault on Ukraine

WARSAW / KYIV — Polish fighter jets were scrambled and NATO partners put air patrols on heightened alert early Saturday after Russia launched one of its largest aerial attacks on Ukraine since 2022, firing hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a barrage that Ukrainian officials say killed at least three people and damaged residential and industrial areas across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the country’s air force described an unprecedented overnight barrage that, Kyiv said, involved roughly 580 drones and about 40 missiles. Ukrainian air-defence systems, bolstered by Western-supplied equipment, shot down the vast majority of the incoming weapons — Kyiv gave preliminary tallies of more than 550 drones and about 30 missiles intercepted — but several strikes nevertheless struck population centres, killing and wounding civilians and causing fires at energy and industrial sites. 

Poland’s military said it deployed Polish and allied aircraft “to ensure the safety of Polish airspace” after some of the strikes took place in western Ukraine near the Polish border. The Polish operational command said ground-based air-defence and radar reconnaissance systems were put at their highest readiness level as a precaution; officials stressed the measure was defensive and that allied operations concluded after the barrage subsided. International reporting and NATO-affiliated outlets said other NATO jets also responded with patrols as the situation unfolded.

The strikes reached deep into Ukraine and hit a swath of regions, including Dnipro, Chernihiv, Khmelnytskyi, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv, according to Ukrainian authorities. In Dnipro, local officials reported collapsed apartment buildings and rescue teams searching rubble; in other regions, damage to industrial facilities and electrical infrastructure added to power outages and disrupted services. Ukrainian emergency services and hospitals said dozens were wounded across the affected regions. 

Kyiv’s leaders condemned the attack as indiscriminate and aimed at terrorising civilians. President Zelenskiy used his nightly address and social-media channels to underline the scale of the assault and to praise air-defence crews for intercepting most of the weapons, while warning that “we must be ready for further provocations.” Western capitals and Kyiv have said the scale and pattern of recent strikes demonstrate Moscow’s intent to keep pressure on both military and civilian infrastructure. 

Moscow made limited public comment early Saturday. Russian defence spokespeople claimed their operations hit military and logistics targets and denied deliberately striking civilian infrastructure; the Kremlin has repeatedly framed strikes as needed to degrade Ukraine’s capabilities. Independent verification of specific target sets is often difficult in the fog of war, and both Kyiv and Moscow publish differing and competing accounts. 

One immediate and worrying feature of the assault was its ripples across NATO’s eastern flank. Polish authorities said their scramble was precautionary after strikes close to the border, and earlier this month allied forces assisted Warsaw in shooting down drones that crossed into Polish airspace. NATO officials and regional capitals denounced any incursions into allied airspace as “unacceptable” and warned that Moscow risked creating dangerous incidents in the vicinity of NATO members. Estonian and other Baltic officials separately reported airspace violations by Russian aircraft in recent days, heightening concern about inadvertent escalation. 

Ukraine’s armed forces responded to the attack with counter-strikes directed at infrastructure inside Russia, including reported strikes on oil and energy facilities in regions such as Samara and Saratov. Russian regional authorities acknowledged fires and damage at some energy sites overnight; Kyiv’s government and independent analysts said such retaliatory moves aim to degrade the economic capacity Moscow uses to sustain its war effort. Those tit-for-tat operations underscore how kinetic actions quickly broaden the strike footprint on both sides. 

Washington and European capitals issued immediate statements urging de-escalation while pledging continued support to Kyiv. Western officials reiterated that NATO’s collective-defence commitments remain firm and called on Moscow to stop indiscriminate strikes against civilians. At the same time, diplomats said the alliance would step up monitoring and readiness to avoid accidental clashes near NATO airspace while simultaneously maintaining channels to manage crisis risks. 

Military analysts emphasised two interlocking dynamics visible in the assault. First, the sheer scale of drone use — swarms designed to saturate defences — points to a growing operational preference by Russian forces to combine loitering munitions, cruise missiles and tactical strikes to overwhelm interception systems. Second, the attacks revealed both the improvements and the limits of Ukrainian air defences: advanced systems and an augmented logistics chain enabled Kyiv to shoot down most incoming threats, but no defence is perfect, and the remaining strikes have real human and infrastructure costs. 

Civilians bore the brunt. Hospitals treated dozens; rescue services combed apartment blocks for survivors; and local officials appealed for humanitarian aid to respond to power outages and fires. With winter approaching and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure repeatedly targeted this year, humanitarian agencies warned that continued strikes would deepen civilian suffering and complicate reconstruction and relief efforts. 

Polish and NATO leaders face delicate choices about how assertively to respond to security threats near alliance borders. Polish officials have stressed that NATO’s response remains defensive but persistent — patrolling, escorts and readiness — while diplomats press for de-escalatory channels to avoid miscalculation. For allies, the incident underscores the tightrope between reinforcing Kyiv’s defence and preventing direct clashes between NATO and Russian forces. 

What comes next will depend on whether Moscow treats the strikes as a sustained campaign or a shorter, punitive operation, and on Kyiv’s capacity to deter future waves with its own strikes and international support. In the near term, western Ukraine is likely to remain on high alert and regional military readiness to defend NATO airspace will stay elevated. International diplomatic pressure — including fresh calls for sanctions and new aid packages for Ukraine — is expected to follow in the hours and days ahead.