NATO member Poland scrambled fighter jets overnight as Russia launched record numbers of drones and missiles at neighboring Ukraine.
Poland’s operational command said it had also placed its ground-based air defenses and radar systems on “the highest state of readiness.”
“The measures taken are aimed at ensuring security in areas bordering the threatened regions,” Warsaw’s military said in a post on social media, adding it was “fully ready for immediate response.”
RADOSLAW JOZWIAK/AFP via Getty Images
Why It Matters
Russia’s waves of airstrikes, particularly on sites close to NATO territory to the west of Ukraine, have frequently pushed the alliance to scramble fighter jets. Romania, which also borders Ukraine, scrambled fighters earlier this month in response to drone attacks close to the border.
NATO members are collectively obliged to respond to attacks on other alliance nations under Article 5 of the founding treaty. Drones and missiles entering NATO airspace have not been treated as attacks on the alliance so far.
What To Know
Ukraine’s air force said early on Wednesday that Russia had fired 728 drones, six Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles at Ukraine overnight.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the majority of the incoming targets were shot down, including by interceptor drones. The Ukrainian leader said it was the “highest number of aerial targets in a single day.” Colonel Yuriy Ignat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, told Newsweek that more than 300 Iranian-designed Shahed drones were fired in the overnight strikes.
The air force said Kyiv shot down just under 300 drones, with more than 400 straying before they could hit their targets. Ukraine shot down the seven cruise missiles, according to the air force, which did not mention any interceptions of the Kinzhal missiles.
Ukrainian authorities said Moscow had focused the strikes on the northwestern city of Lutsk, close to the Ukrainian border with Poland and Belarus. The western city of Khmelnytskyi was also targeted.
Damage was reported across major cities including Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv, along with several other regions in northeastern, central and southern Ukraine.
“This is a telling attack—and it comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all,” Zelensky said.
President Donald Trump, who pledged to end the war in Ukraine in just 24 hours as he was re-elected last year, has grown increasingly frustrated with Russia’s refusal to ink a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal. Trump had avoided overtly heaping pointed criticism on Russian President Vladimir Putin, but since Ukraine signed an agreement in March—which Moscow did not—the Republican has been more openly critical of Putin and the intensified waves of often lethal Russian airstrikes on Ukraine.
In a fresh indication of Trump’s patience wearing thin, he said on Tuesday the U.S. has had “a lot of b******* thrown at us by Putin.”
He added: “He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
Trump last week said he was “very disappointed” after a call with Putin.
Trump said on Monday the U.S. would send more weapons to Ukraine after the Pentagon last week confirmed a halt in some aid heading for the war-torn country. Kyiv officials were most concerned over supplies of interceptor missiles for the vaunted U.S.-made Patriot air defense system, Ukraine’s only real option for shooting down ballistic missiles.
Axios reported on Tuesday that Trump had promised Zelensky the U.S. would quickly send 10 Patriot interceptors and look at other ways to get the sought-after missiles to Ukraine, citing two anonymous sources. The president nodded to Ukraine’s requests for Patriot missiles during the NATO summit in June, saying he would “see if we can make some available.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Trump was weighing up sending another Patriot system to Ukraine, citing two officials.
What People Are Saying
Zelensky said on Wednesday that Ukraine had experienced a “new massive Russian attack on our cities.”
Trump said on Tuesday: “That was a war that should have never happened. A lot of people are dying and it should end.”
