NATO aircraft deployed in Poland as Russian jet-powered drones strike Ukraine
Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of strike drones overnight.
LONDON -- NATO "military aviation" assets were deployed in Polish airspace overnight, according to the Armed Forces Operational Command in Warsaw, in response to Russian jet-powered drone attacks on targets in western Ukraine.
The command said in posts to X that it conducted "a short-term elevation of readiness of selected forces and assets" in response to the attacks. "The actions were of a preventive nature and were aimed at ensuring the safety of Polish airspace, particularly in areas adjacent to those affected by Russian strikes," it added.
The command said in a subsequent post to X that "military aviation continues to operate, and ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems remain in an appropriate state of readiness" in response to what it called "the emergence of further potential threats to the security of Polish airspace." The operations concluded after around two hours.
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 149 drones into the country overnight, with the craft used a mix of Shahed strike drones -- around half of which were jet-powered -- and Gerbera and Parody decoy drones. Ukrainian defenses downed 128 drones, the air force said, with impacts reported across 13 locations.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported impacts on a residential building in Kyiv and attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region, in which at least eight people were injured.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post to Telegram that at least three people were injured when a drone hit a gas station in the capital's Holosiivskyi district.
In the northeastern city of Sumy, meanwhile, at least two people were killed and 23 others injured in a strike on a shopping mall, local officials said.
Russia's Defense Ministry said that the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv and the southwestern city of Chornomorsk were among the targets of its overnight strikes. The ministry also said it targeted two dry cargo ships that were heading to the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow also said its forces downed at least 448 Ukrainian drones overnight. The craft were intercepted above 13 Russian regions, plus occupied Crimea, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the ministry said.
From Wednesday evening through Thursday morning, Russia's federal air transport agency -- Rosaviatsiya -- reported temporary flight restrictions at airports in Sochi, Tambov, Penza, Saratov, Volgograd, Krasnodar, Grozny, Vladikavkaz and Makhachkala.
Rosaviatsiya also announced temporary restrictions at Vnukovo and Domodedovo international airports in Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram on Thursday morning that Kyiv's forces attacked "eight Russian infrastructure targets that support the war effort" over the previous 24 hours.
Among them were a refinery in the Yamalo-Nenets region and a maritime trading port in Dagestan, Zelenskyy said, as were unspecified targets in Moscow, Voronezh, Astrakhan and Bryansk. "Russia continues its daily terror against Ukraine, and it receives a just response every day," he wrote.
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