Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people in Ukraine on Monday, including one person in Kiev, in attacks that reached as far as the western city of Lviv, prompting neighboring Poland to scramble fighter jets to protect its airspace, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
The attacks came as President Volodymyr Zelensky was returning from the United States, where he said President Donald Trump had agreed to give Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missiles.
Air raid sirens sounded in most Ukrainian regions, with a Reuters witness reporting explosions in Kiev. Several non-residential buildings were set on fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
One person was killed and two injured in the capital, emergency services said, while six others, including two children, were killed in Dnipropetrovsk and Poltava regions.
Six people were killed in Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rih, including two girls aged 5 and 12. Another eight people were injured in a direct hit by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile, the head of the city's defense council, Alexander Vilkul, said.
"A dark night," Vilkul wrote on Telegram, adding that the missile, launched from Russia's Voronezh region, hit the home of a large family. He warned that the death toll could rise as rescuers cleared the rubble.
In Lviv, near Poland, rescue teams were clearing debris to reach people trapped after Russian missiles damaged two apartment blocks and wounded 15 people, authorities said.
Earlier, Zelensky warned that a massive Russian attack was likely imminent, saying that the safety of Ukrainians depended on the readiness of allies to provide missile defense assets.
"It is important that our partners fully understand what is happening and that the protection of human lives directly depends on their readiness," Zelensky wrote on Telegram.
Poland, a member of the EU and NATO, scrambled fighter jets to protect its airspace during the Russian strikes, the country's armed forces said in Aix. The measures are preventive, according to the same source.
A warehouse of Russia's largest online retailer "Wildberries" caught fire in the city of Penza after a Ukrainian drone attack, regional governor Oleg Melnichenko said on Telegram. One person was injured and about 200 people were evacuated, he added, just a day after the company — which is often targeted by Ukrainian attacks — evacuated another of its facilities in central Russia.
A smoke plume has formed after a Ukrainian drone attack on a warehouse in the Penza region, which could move towards the city of Penza. If a smell appears, residents should close their windows and limit their time outside, the city's mayor Oleg Denisov told Max, quoted by TASS.
Firefighters are battling flames on the territory of the warehouse.
The losses are falling on ordinary Russians, some of whom rely on online sales as their main income, as Ukraine continues to hit energy facilities and refineries, deepening the fuel crisis in the world's largest country.
Drone attacks have damaged a dozen Wildberries warehouses recently, destroying about 10% of storage capacity and causing losses to tens of thousands of small businesses using the platform, the company and local authorities said. Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, warned that the attacks on the company were affecting the financial health of online retailers and their suppliers.
Russia shot down a total of 258 drones overnight, the defense ministry said. The figure also includes territories of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Reuters stressed that it was unable to independently verify all the data. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in the conflict, which began after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.