Russian Strikes Kill 13 in Ukraine, Poland Scrambles Jets
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- Russian airstrikes killed at least 13 across Ukraine on Thursday, with hits in Kyiv, the Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions, and as far west as Lviv close to the Polish border, where 26 were injured and rescuers searched rubble
- Poland scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace during the barrage and police in the Lublin region near Ukraine found a crater and scattered debris from an unidentified object in a field
- Zelensky returned from the US saying Trump agreed to licence Patriot missiles to Ukraine, warning beforehand that 'the protection of people's lives depends directly' on allies' willingness to provide anti-missile defences
- Ukraine's drone strikes hit a Wildberries warehouse in Penza, injuring one and forcing 200 to evacuate, with another facility in Sarapul also catching fire the same day
- Wildberries has lost roughly 10% of its storage capacity to nearly a dozen recent drone strikes, with losses piling on tens of thousands of small businesses that rely on the platform, according to the company and local authorities
- Sberbank warned it may have to boost loan-loss provisions as attacks on Wildberries hit the finances of online retailers and their suppliers, while Russia's defence ministry said it downed 258 drones overnight
Why it matters: The Lublin crater marks a direct incursion of the war into NATO territory, escalating the cost of deterrence for Poland. Inside Russia, Ukraine's sustained targeting of Wildberries has destroyed about 10% of the retailer's storage capacity and now threatens Sberbank's loan book, spreading the economic damage from frontline regions into the financial system that serves ordinary Russians.
