Russia Kills 13 Across Ukraine, Poland Scrambles Jets
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- Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people across Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, with attacks extending to the western city of Lviv near the Polish border.
- In Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, six were killed including two girls aged 5 and 12, in what local officials said was a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile launched from Russia's Voronezh region.
- Poland scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace, and Polish police in the Lublin region discovered a crater and scattered debris from an unidentified object in a field.
- Ukrainian drone strikes hit Wildberries warehouses in Penza and Sarapul, injuring one person and evacuating about 200, with nearly a dozen warehouses damaged recently destroying roughly 10% of the company's storage capacity.
- Sberbank warned it may need to boost loan-loss provisions as attacks on Wildberries hit the finances of online retailers and their suppliers.
- The strikes came as Zelensky returned from the US, where he said Trump agreed to give Ukraine licences for Patriot missiles, and Zelensky warned the safety of Ukrainians depends on allies' willingness to provide anti-missile defences.
- Russia's defence ministry said it downed 258 drones overnight and struck what it called military facilities across Ukraine, as well as three cargo ships.
Why it matters: The strikes reaching Lviv — close to the Polish border — triggered NATO-member Poland to scramble jets, the most direct Western military response in this conflict. Inside Russia, nearly a dozen Wildberries warehouses hit in recent weeks have wiped out about 10% of storage capacity and prompted Sberbank to warn of increased loan-loss provisions, putting tangible economic pressure on tens of thousands of small businesses that depend on the platform.
