Russia Pummels Ukraine, Projectile Crashes Inside Poland
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- Russia's Ministry of Defense confirmed it carried out a "massive strike using long-range precision weapons from land, air, and sea" alongside attack drones on military sites across Ukraine in a statement posted to Telegram.
- Polish army reported that an unidentified projectile crashed in the village of Tarnawa-Kolonia in Lublin province—about 95 kilometers from the Ukrainian border—causing an explosion that residents reported hearing.
- Russia's overnight assault killed at least eight people including children across Ukraine, with one killed in Kyiv and six killed in Kryvyi Rih—three of them children aged 5 and 12—after a ballistic missile struck a home where a large family lived.
- Polish forces scrambled fighter jets in response to the attack, with the army's air defenses observing at least a dozen missiles over western Ukraine that posed potential threats to Polish airspace; Poland noted NATO jets shot down Russian drones that violated its airspace last September.
- Ukrainian drone strikes ignited a Wildberries warehouse in Penza, Russia, with regional governor Oleg Melnichenko reporting one person wounded and approximately 200 people evacuated from the site.
- President Zelensky had asked President Donald Trump for additional air defense systems during a White House meeting one day earlier, after Ukrainian intelligence warned of Russia's "massive" preparation for the overnight strikes.
Why it matters: The Poland projectile landing 95 kilometers inside NATO territory tests alliance response protocols and arrives one day after Zelensky's White House request for more air defenses, making Russia's timing politically charged. The loss of three children from a single missile strike on a family home in Kryvyi Rih underscores the human cost of a month that already marked Ukraine's heaviest civilian casualty count since 2022.
